"If China is a friend of the Philippines, why does it behave like an enemy?"
As I review the relations between this country and China during the last nine years, an old saying about friendship readily comes to mind. The expression is “With friends like that, who needs enemies?” Stated less wittily, the expression means that friends should behave like friends.
Has this country’s big northern neighbor been conducting itself as a friend? Let the record speak for itself.
In 2012, after a brief standoff with grossly outclassed Philippines maritime force – Coast Guard vessels – China’s maritime militia wrested possession of Panganiban (Mischief) Reef, an islet well within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ), whose limit is set at 370 kilometers from shore by UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea).
The Filipino people asked themselves if China is a friend, why does it engage the Philippines in a standoff and why does it take possession of what is clearly a piece of Philippine Territory? China trotted out its nine-dash claim, which, it said, gave it sovereignty over virtually the entire South China Sea, and it offered bilateral negotiations with the Philippines over the issue.
Cognizant of China’s record on bilateral negotiations – especially with smaller countries – the Philippines refused and continued to demand China’s withdrawal from Panganiban Reef, in whose waters Filipino fishermen were no longer around to operate. Predictably, China refused to budge. In 2013, the Philippines filed a case with the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague, a relief available to signatories of UNCLOS. China refused to participate in the proceedings, which went ahead nevertheless.
During the pendency of the proceeding, China’s Coast Guard habitually drove Filipino fishermen away from their historical fishing grounds – with Chinese fisheries taking their place – and occasionally ramming their modest boats.
The Filipino people continued to ask themselves: If China is a friend of the Philippines, why does it behave like an enemy?
Joy and jubilation swept not only this country but the entire maritime world when in 2016 the PCA unequivocally (1) struck down China’s nine-dash claim, saying that it had no historical basis, and (2) upholding the Philippines’ exclusive right to exploit the resources of its up-to-370-kilometers-from-shore EEZ.
The Filipino people, euphoric over their country’s victory, had every reason to believe that their government would immediately proceed to enforce the PCA’s judgment. They were 100-percent wrong. Newly elected President Rodrigo Duterte, in one of his first post-election acts, announced a foreign-policy pivot toward China – and away from the Western Powers – and declared that his administration would enforce the PCA judgment only toward the end of his term.
Stating the obvious, the former Davao City mayor said that the Philippines did not have a strong navy with which to confront the world’s second-largest navy or even its coast guard. During the first years of his term his administration would focus on Philippine-Chinese economic relations, seeking to obtain loans and other financial goodies from the giant country to the Philippines’ northwest.
Coming on top of most Filipinos’ distrust of China, the position taken by President Duterte toward that country enraged many Filipinos. “Bizarre” was the word Filipinos used to describe a decision to not enforce an international ruling that not only had enormous implications for this country’s territorial integrity but also was obtained with much difficulty and at great cost.
“We’ve won a superb victory, so let’s enforce it to the extent that we can” was what almost all Filipinos wanted to say to their President.
But Rodrigo Duterte, for reasons known only to himself and his closest advisers, was not to be deflected from the course he had laid out at the start of his term. He would not call out the Chinese for all their violations of UNCLOS and this country’s territorial integrity.
His administration continued to allow China to fish without permission inside this country’s EEZ, build military-type structures on reclaimed Philippine islets – some dangerously close to Palawan and Zambales – and occasionally ram boats manned by Filipino fishermen struggling to make a living from Philippine waters.
Notes verbales, diplomatic protests, and admonitions to China’s ambassador – these are as far as Mr. Duterte will allow to go to enforce the PCA judgment and protect Philippine sovereignty.
The time has come – may, is long past – for putting an end to all the nonsense about Chinese friendship toward the Philippines. China under its present government has not been a friend to this country; it has been an enemy. With friends like China, who needs enemies?