LAST July 12 my wife and I joined a demonstration outside the Chinese consulate in San Francisco to add to the loud voices demanding that China vacate the areas in the South China Sea over which the Philippines has “sovereign rights,” based on the decision handed down that day by the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in the Hague.
The demonstration was organized by US Pinoys for Good Governance, a national organization in America that was among the very first to protest China’s occupation of areas in the Spratlys claimed by the Philippines, based on the provisions of United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The July 12 demonstration was a symbolic serving of an eviction notice on China.
The PCA decision, based on a suit filed by the Philippine government, dismissed as lacking in merit China’s supposedly historic rights over the contested territory. According to USPGG, the basis of that claim, expressed as a “nine-dot-line” encompassing most of the South China Sea, is as valid as if the descendants of Genghis Khan were to claim sovereignty over territories that once constituted the Mongol Empire.
To be blunt about it, the PCA, in effect, told China to stuff its nine-dot-line thesis up its behind. Doubtless, that decision made China lose face – something that Asians place a lot of importance on – and it gave us, the demonstrators, a great deal of psychic pleasure.
According to those who claim deeper insights on the controversy, that’s about all that the Philippines can hope to achieve in the wake of the PCA decision. The skeptics have scoffed at the Philippines’ mice-like attempts to contend with the gigantic Chinese dragon, asserting that the millions of dollars paid to the international lawyers to argue the Philippine case could have been put to much better use. They have echoed the Chinese line that the PCA decision was written on a useless scrap of paper which Beijing will never honor and no country is capable of enforcing anyway, much less the Philippines.
According to the skeptics, our puny military would be blown away by the Chinese in a day. But those who subscribe to Pinoy machismo insist that it’s better to go down fighting than to allow invaders to trample our sacred shores, to paraphrase the original English lyrics of the Philippine national anthem The Tagalog lyrics are even more explicit: “Aming ligaya na pag may mangaapi ang mamatay ng dahil sa iyo.”
Of course, some of that machismo is based on the hope that, when push comes to shove, the United States will come to the aid of its long-time ally and cut off the tail of the dragon. They are basing this hope on treaties and public declarations of firm support by American officialdom.
At this, the skeptics – specifically those on the Left – are quick to point out America will not necessarily defend the Philippines unless its own interests are jeopardized. They also point out, quite rightly, that China has been – and will continue to be – very careful in treading lightly around US economic, political and military interests, so as not to unduly upset Uncle Sam.
In fact, they point out that America has also been tiptoeing around China’s interests and has been careful not to knock off the chip on China’s shoulder. For this reason, US and Chinese military brass have been in constant “consultations” to make sure that no one pulls a trigger unnecessarily.
On the other hand, the US has ostensibly been using the Philippines to keep China off balance, embarrass it before the international community and continue to make it lose face, while claiming to maintain a neutral position on the dispute. Apparently China also thinks so, having accused the US of manipulating the PCA in deciding against China.
Those who consider themselves pragmatists insist that the most realistic approach to the problem is to agree – or offer – to exploit the oil and natural gas resources of the area, using Chinese funds and technology. Our country could thus derive benefits from them, rather than none at all. It’s the classic half-a-loaf approach. They believe that this is a win-win approach.
However, those who oppose this approach characterize it as lying back and enjoying rape if it is inevitable.
The new government of President Rodrigo Duterte, on the other hand, has swung from resolute self-righteousness (We will not give up an inch of Philippine territory) to downright pragmatism (War with China is out of the question; no way we could win) to being conciliatory (Let’s not gloat over our PCA victory and let’s not make China lose face), to being practical (Why not join hands to develop the area?).
In sum, the Philippine government is unsure of how to handle the situation. Newly-designated Solicitor General Jose Calida tried to state with a straight face that the government is in “in consultation with experts” to determine “the right response at the right time.”
One pundit described the position of the Duterte government as follows: “We will not stand for it. We will not take it sitting down. And we will not take it lying down.”
Duterte’s plan to send former President Fidel V. Ramos to China as a friendly emissary to find a way around the dispute has been described by the same pundits as “giving the impression of doing something while actually doing nothing.” They also warn that Ramos will end up being a scape goat, for failing to gain any concessions from the Chinese, while Duterte will be able to rightly say that “he tried.”
Some months ago, while representatives of the Aquino government, led by then Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario, were still arguing its case before the PCA, a group of us in San Francisco managed to get the insights of Consul General Henry Bensurto, Jr. on the dispute with China. Prior to his posting in San Francisco, Bensurto was part of the Philippine team that filed the arbitration case against China. He was Assistant Secretary of the West Philippine Sea Center (WPSC) in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Secretary-General of the Commission on Maritime and Ocean Affairs Secretariat (CMOAS), a coordinating body on the Law of the Sea and other maritime concerns.
Like a seasoned diplomat, Bensurto declined to make a definitive statement about the status of the dispute before the arbitral tribunal and any insights that he shared with us on the options of the Philippine government were considered off the record.
But this much we gathered, not necessarily from what Bensurto revealed to us as from what we deduced, based on his insights and ours:
1. US interests are being threatened by China’s aggressiveness in the Spratlys. American involvement, while ostensibly in aid of its ally, the Philippines, as well as other affected friendly Asian nations, will mainly be in order to protect US interests. This is a reality that the Philippines must face. It won’t be for love of Little Brown Brother that America will go to war with China – if it has to – but for Yankee economic, political and military interests. But the Philippines has benefited from having America standing by it – whatever the psudo-nationalists and the Leftists say. Do they think that China would even bother to humor us with an offer of joint exploration if this were not the case?
2. Neither the US nor China is particularly eager to pull the trigger. It’s a colossal game of chicken. China must dutifully rattle its sabers (or lose more face than it already has lost) but it will apply the tactic that has been variously described as the “cabbage approach” and the “salami-slicing approach,” namely to subtly and progressively assert its dominance of the South China Sea, until the US feels really threatened. And then, like a sly fox, China will back off and bide its time. Biding its time is what China has been doing in reclaiming its territories. First Hong Kong. And, eventually, Taiwan. But the end game, if the US and China can help it, will not be war but a détente similar to that arranged between North and South Korea to end the Korean War. Before that happens, the Philippines must watch out for its own interests.
3. The wise thing for the Philippine government to do is not to show its hand. It must sound publicly conciliatory while remaining firm in its position. In the process, allow China to save face, but never be under any illusion that this will gain any concessions from the Chinese. On the other hand, the Philippines should try to extract whatever benefits it can out of a détente with China, fully aware that we are dealing with a sly fox – nay, a snake.
4. In this regard, the Philippines must also learn to play the waiting game, as well as its own version of the salami-slicing approach. From this perspective, significant gains have already been made in the efforts of the Philippines to assert its sovereignty over its part of the Spratlys. But while patriotic Pinoys may want to commemorate the July 12 PCA “triumph” by annually staging a demonstration outside Chinese embassies and consulates around the world, we should be prepared to teach our children and grandchildren to keep the torch burning.
I I don’t think we can evict the Chinese bully in our lifetime. ([email protected])
