Chinese coast guards have menaced Filipino fishermen twice within a week from President Marcos Jr.’s Beijing state visit.
First was at Ayungin (Second Thomas) Shoal off Palawan. China Coast Guard steel vessel 5204 and a rigid-hull inflatable craft drove away a wooden Fili-pino boat. Second was at
Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal off Zambales. Two Chinese rubber boats harassed hungry Masinloc townfolk. (Reported in this column: https://tinyurl.com/Panatag11Jan23)
Ayungin and Panatag are in the Philippines’ 200-mile exclusive economic zone and 700 miles distant from China. But illegally claiming the whole South China Sea, Beijing gunboats intimidate, board, ram, water cannon and machinegun civilian boats.
Right after his Jan. 3-5 visit, Marcos Jr. trumpeted a supposed deal with China President Xi Jinping. “It’s really an agreement that China will not stop our fishermen from fishing. That’s it. Very simple.”
Learning of China’s bullying, he wasn’t so sure anymore. “Hopefully our counterparts on the other side can bring it to President Xi’s attention. A bilateral group is working on issues about [SCS]. I propose to bring that group to a higher level.”
Marcos Jr. must realize: Xi cannot be trusted. Beijing habitually reneges on accords. It signs only in pretense, to make the other side lower their guard. It then pursues secret agendas.
Xi is secretary general of the conspiratorial China Communist Party. Lying to foreigners and his own people – say, the exaggerated efficacy of China’s COVID-19 vaccines – is second nature. Mao Zedong said a good communist is a propagandist.
Beijing targets to seize Philippine and others’ EEZs: Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam. Diplomacy is illusory. Despite its 2002 declaration of conduct with ASEAN, Beijing has grabbed 25 SCS reefs, nine of them Manila’s. It fortified the Philippines’ Panganiban (Mischief) Reef and Vietnam’s Woody Island.
Beijing withheld from Manila results of the 2005-2008 Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking of petroleum and minerals in Philippine seabed. Using the study, it filed with the UN a nine-dash line SCS claim.
In 2012, China warships broke a simultaneous withdrawal from Panatag and chained off the shoal’s lagoon. Beijing paved a fighter-bomber airstrip on Ma-nila’s Kagitingan (Fiery Cross)
Reef. It ignored The Hague court 2016 ruling that China’s nine-dash line violates the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. It even escalated sea aggression.
In September 2016, Xi got president Duterte to allow Chinese fishers into Recto (Reed) Bank in exchange for Filipinos entering Panatag. Satellite, personal and official accounts attest that Filipinos are chased away from Panatag till today.
But no limits were set on the area, volume and duration of Chinese fishing in Recto. In 2019, a Chinese steel trawler even rammed an anchored Filipino wooden boat and abandoned 22 fishers thrown into the cold night sea. Duterte’s admin received only $400 million out of Xi’s promised $30-billion loans.
Marcos Jr. must beware of China’s military grey zone tactics. Like, blockade of Sandy Cay within Pagasa Islands territorial boundary by seemingly innocuous Chinese fishers who are actually People’s Liberation Army maritime militia.
Beware too of Chinese influencing in foreign governments, industries, academe and media. Adept at infiltration and disinformation, Communist China can cause appointment of sympathetic defense-military officers and removal of unfriendly or pro-US ones.
Rule of Law is best in dealing with the SCS dispute’s political, economic and diplomatic complexities, former foreign secretary Albert del Rosario counsels. Marcos Jr. must stand by
UNCLOS and The Hague ruling. To enforce the latter, del Rosario suggests that Marcos Jr. bring it up constantly to the UN General Assembly.
Rule of Law can counter China’s “arbitrariness and unilateralism.” Examples: Beijing’s claim to five features in the Philippine Rise by virtue of giving them Chinese names. Or Chinese warship trespass in Philippine internal waters like Sulu Sea and Sibutu Strait. Or embedding of 3,000 Chinese spies in Filipino organizations, trades and communities.
Joint oil exploration and development must be under Philippine, not Chinese, law. Marcos Jr. must shut down pollutive Chinese mines. Better still, domesti-cally process the ore and
export the metals.
While inking modus vivendi with CCG, the Philippine Coast Guard must also install machine guns and water cannons. The AFP must revive joint patrols and exercises with allies in Philippine EEZ. Chinese harassment of Filipino scientists in Recto’s Sampaguita gas field must be repelled. The Marine outpost at Ayungin Shoal must be rebuilt.
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