“China’s gunboat diplomacy in the South China Sea is the source of tension in the region, and it must stop”
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. recently took part in an unprecedented trilateral meeting with the United States and Japan in Washington to further strengthen economic and defense cooperation with our two staunchest allies.
In that three-way meeting, President Joe Biden reaffirmed Washington’s ‘ironclad’ commitment to Philippine defense.
Marcos has made it clear since he took office in mid-2022 the Philippines will not give up one inch of its territory even as Chinese aggression in the West Philippine Sea steadily increased since he assumed the presidency in 2022.
The Philippine government stands on solid ground in building a united front of its allies, partners and friends in the international community to counter China’s aggressive actions in our EEZ.
Our international allies have offered to help us in protecting our sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction to ensure peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific.
This form of multilateral diplomacy involves cooperation and consensus-building and we have obtained the support of countries such as Japan, Australia and the members of the European Union for our efforts to gain international support for a rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific region.
Such united front is timely amid recent developments.
“Horrified” is how Marcos Jr. described the supposed “gentleman’s agreement” or a secret deal forged by his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte with Chinese President Xi Jinping years ago on keeping the status quo in Ayungin Shoal in the West Philippine Sea.
He then said he had rescinded it, if indeed it exists at all.
“We don’t know anything about it; there is no documentation, there is no record. We were not briefed…When I came into office, nobody told me there was such an agreement. If the agreement states that we must get permission from another country just to navigate within our territory, it would be difficult to follow that,” Marcos explained.
He is right.
If the Chief Executive is taking an increasingly assertive stance on our maritime dispute with China in the West Philippine Sea, it is consistent with our advocacy of a rules-based international order, not one where might is right.
The Marcos Jr. administration has in fact begun to craft a “proportionate, deliberate and reasonable” response to the “unabated, illegal, coercive, aggressive and dangerous attacks” by the China Coast Guard and the Chinese Maritime Militia in the West Philippine Sea.
“We seek no conflict with any nation, more so nations that purport and claim to be our friends, but we will not be cowed into silence, submission or subservience. Filipinos do not yield,” the President pointed out.
Our Department of National Defense has expressed full agreement with the President: “The Philippines is not seeking a fight or trouble in the South China Sea but will not be cowed into silence, submission, or subservience.”
The agency also slammed Beijing’s “illegal and uncivilized activities” in the South China Sea, and the “inability of the Chinese government to conduct open, transparent, and legal negotiations…Their repertoire consists only of patronizing and, failing that, intimidating smaller countries.”
This is the correct position of the Philippine government amid Beijing’s continuing harassment of our vessels and personnel in our Exclusive Economic Zone as mandated by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
We support the efforts of the DND and our National Security Council to put together “a response and countermeasure package” to address China’s bullying tactics in the South China Sea.
We recall the Philippines and China created a Bilateral Consultation Mechanism in 2016 to discuss issues and concerns related to the South China Sea.
The first BCM was convened in 2017 and has held eight meetings since.
But little, it would seem, has been achieved by discussions and negotiations by officials of the Foreign Ministries of our two countries on bilateral issues concerning territorial and maritime disputes in the South China Sea.
While the Philippines has persisted in negotiations with China to resolve disputes peacefully, we see no sign that open dialogue has led to a win-win solution for both sides.
Beijing has been adamant in claiming ownership of virtually the entire South China Sea on the basis of a fictional “ten-dash-line” that has no historical nor legal basis and debunked by the Permanent Arbitral Tribunal of Unclos.
China’s gunboat diplomacy in the South China Sea is the source of tension in the region, and it must stop. (Email: [email protected])