"Do we have to wait for the US to come along and do a Big Brother rescue?"
"Do we have to wait for the US to come along and do a Big Brother rescue?"
Perhaps the biggest takeaway from President Rodrigo Duterte’s State of the Nation Address last week was the defense he gave for not standing up to China’s domineering stance in the West Philippine Sea.
“The avoidance of conflict,” he said, “and protection of our territorial waters and natural resources compel us to perform a delicate balancing act.” It will cost the Philippines too much, he said, to get into a shooting war “that will leave widows and orphans in its wake.”
No right-minded Filipino wants to go to war. It will cost precious lives, hamstring development and growth, exhaust the country’s attenuated resources. What many are asking for is not war, but that the Philippines protect its territory and people the same way Vietnam and Indonesia do—with courage and steadfastness. And China has not waged war against them.
Despite Duterte’s bend-over backward caution, China’s saber-rattling in the West Philippine Sea has grown too loud for some officials of this government to ignore. Yesterday, Foreign Secretary Teddy Locsin tweeted, “Diplomatic protest fired off” over the presence of 113 Chinese vessels “swarming,” as some news reports put it, near Pag-Asa island in the WPS on July 24 and 25.
Locsin says he did the same in April over the same issue, firing off “a salvo of diplomatic notes.” Which were obviously ignored and totally ineffectual save as a matter of record. “Noted,” China might have replied.
National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr. said that the number of massed ships was a new “record”—in April, the military recorded 87 Chinese vessels in the same area in February. Esperon speculated that the ships might have moved off to Subi Reef, where the Chinese have military bases.
The strong Chinese presence in the WPS poses a security threat to the Philippines and other countries in the region. The Chinese bases in the area are highly weaponized—as Duterte said in his SONA, “There are already guided missiles in that island. And the fastest that they have installed there can reach Manila in seven minutes.”
Political science professor Robert Farley, writing in April this year for The National Interest (nationalinterest.org), says that “China has established numerous military installations in the South China Sea, primarily in the Spratly and Paracel Islands [claimed by Vietnam].
“In the Spratlys, China has built airfields at Subi, Mischief and Fiery Cross, along with potential missile, radar and helicopter infrastructure at several smaller formations…. China continues construction across the region, meaning that it may expand its military presence in the future.
“The larger bases (Subi, Mischief, Fiery Cross and Woody Island[Paracels]) have infrastructure necessary for the management of military aircraft, including fighters and large patrol craft. These missiles, radars and aircraft extend the lethal reach of China’s military across the breadth of the South China Sea.”
This is frightening. So it’s understandable that President Duterte fears for our country given China’s massive firepower in the region.
But it’s one thing to be cautious, and another thing to be a doormat. Locsin in his role as diplomat has done what he can with the means at his disposal. Whether he can or should do anything more depends on the country’s policy on the matter.
It looks like the President is going for peace, but it looks more like appeasement. China is growing bolder and more aggressive in the face of it.
Esperon said, the government does not know the reason for the swarming done in the WPS by the Chinese vessels several times this year. Wanna bet they’re up to no good?
But if China engages in a shooting war with the Philippines and the US comes to the fore, Dr Farley says the island bases have “some military relevance” and they do “represent an asset to China’s military,” but he opines that “in an actual conflict the value would dwindle quickly.”
He sees the bases as being “more important as a political claim to waterways and undersea resources. Militarily, they represent a thin crust on China’s A2/AD [Anti-Access/Area Denial] system. Under certain conditions this crust could disrupt US freedom of action, but it won’t be hard for the United States’ Air Force and Navy to punch through.”
The question is, do we have to wait for the U.S. to come along and do a Big Brother rescue? They would only do that if it were in their interest to do so. They would not stick their necks out just to make us feel better about our sovereignty.
We have to stand up for ourselves against the bully. The question is, when and how? /FB and Twitter: @DrJennyO