by：Mauro Gia Samonte
For the year 2020, the critical countdown at the start of the “ber” months is not to Christmas on December 25 but to the United States elections on November 3. Just our luck that the question of war or peace in the world is anchored on what transpires in those elections — or what won’t ever transpire at all.
If Joe Biden is what President Donald Trump pictures him to be (i.e. “China-made”) then US hostilities with China will be unlikely in the event of his victory, and thanks to that, the world can sleep in peace.
But Trump must win, by which alone to justify his many bungling of the US economy — compounded still by his mismanagement of the Covid-19 crisis that has made the US the greatest sufferer of the pandemic — and all components of that pragmatism for Trump triumph at the November polls must come into play come hell or high water.
One big factor is the worsening of the tension in the South China Sea. It has become a common perception that a US war situation with China gives Trump a big edge over his rival. As a rule, a majority of Americans nurse ill suspicions of China, if not hatred.
Therefore, Trump’s incessant ventilation of Chinese animosity with America amounts to insurance of his electoral win.
Recently, a senior diplomat of an Asean nation issued this statement, noting a statement by US State Secretary Mike Pompeo, “China wants to push through with the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea to avoid the aggressive American engagement.”
There is no truth to this, of course. If at all, what the misinformation succeeds at is, it precisely pictures Trump as doing the right thing thereby prompting China to hasten to a defensive position, i.e. formulating the Code of Conduct with Asean countries over the South China Sea.
Trump knows this is just for show. Being privy to US war capabilities and at the same time wary of China’s own, he should be forewarned that America would be at the receiving end in the event of actual hostilities in the South China Sea, albeit in a calibrated manner.
The Code of Conduct (CoC) in the South China Sea has never been a product of any latent US pressure. It’s a concept that has been there as early as July 1992 when the Asean took up a Philippine proposal to create a code of conduct over the region, resulting in the adoption of the South China Sea Declaration.
According to one account, “The Chinese position from 1992 to 2000 was that such inter-governmental documents were adequate for guiding China and Asean countries in handling disputes on the South China Sea and that there was no need to devise new mechanisms.
Yet from 2000 onward, the Chinese government agreed to set up a China-Asean working group for CoC consultation in the long-term interests of stronger ties with Asean countries.”
That no such CoC has come up until now merely demonstrates how political arrangements do take time getting agreed on. Note the Treaty of Westphalia, for instance. It took the Thirty Years’ War in Europe before it became concretized.
In the case of the CoC, since its conception back in the early 1990s, a number of issues had to be ironed out before its final conclusion. Issues like the matter of language, nature and geographical coverage of the document, joint military exercises, fishing activities, etc., etc.
The greatest problematic factor is intervention by outsiders. Read that, US intervention.
This had been tellingly worded by President Barack Obama in the 2012 East Asia Summit when he unabashedly declared to the Asian attendance: “We may not be a party to the dispute, but we are a resident Pacific country, a maritime power, and a guarantor of peace in the Asia-Pacific region.”
In other words, you don’t do anything in your own backyard without involving us who are oceans away.
Problem is, Asean has grown wise since then. For all of US interference, resident countries of the South China Sea have become increasingly assertive of their dignities as honorable members of the community of nations, coming to a head with hitherto Western masters: enough is enough.
It is said that not even Vietnam and Malaysia, previously perceived as pliant to American wishes, would continue to kowtow to the US.
Thus, Trump is now faced with the dilemma of having to fan hostilities in the South China Sea as a requisite of his victory at the November polls but not finding any more stooge state to do it for him.
Best option is for Trump to intensify Freedom of Navigation, or Fonop, sorties in the area in cooperation with traditional allies Australia, Japan and South Korea. Those operations have the tendency of coming to close encounters with Chinese military vessels in the area that are there on regular routine patrols. Incidents from time to time between these contrasting elements have a way of picturing the American masses that Trump is on track with his anti-Chinese posturing.
Hence the need to promote the idea that China is being intimidated by the US into hastening the process for the crafting of the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea.
The real picture is that China and the Philippines are co-chairmen of the working group tasked with finally coming up with the CoC by 2021. It is this timetable which Presidents Xi Jinping and Rodrigo Duterte are intent on meeting — never some Trump election-motivated fantasy.
Take it from Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in his lecture at the recent annual meeting in Singapore between Asean countries and their partner nations: “It is China’s hope that the CoC consultation will be finished in three years’ time so that it will contribute to enduring peace and stability in the South China Sea.”