Ricardo Saludo
BEFORE getting back to where we left off last Thursday, a quick rejoinder to an article comparing how President Rodrigo Duterte and his Indonesian counterpart Joko Widodo, or Jokowi, have handled Chinese incursions in their nations’ exclusive economic zones, or EEZ.
During tensions with Beijing off Indonesia’s Natuna Islands in January last year, Jokowi flew there and asserted that “Indonesia would not bargain on sovereignty.” He also sent warships, leading to a stand-off with Chinese vessels.
The story then noted President Duterte’s restrained response to the presence of more than 200 Chinese-flagged vessels near Whitsun Reef, or Julian Felipe Reef, claimed by the Philippines, China and Vietnam.
He called for a peaceful resolution and kept silent when his foreign affairs and defense secretaries pressed Beijing to withdraw the ships. Instead, Duterte warned that confronting China in our EEZ could spark war.
“On China, Jokowi has shown that he is more deft than Duterte in handling relations with Beijing,” concluded the editorial accompanying the news feature.
Apples and oranges came to mind. Apart from the very different personalities ruling from Manila and Jakarta, there is the immense military and strategic strengths the latter has vis-à-vis the former in dealing with Beijing.
Indonesia has a far more powerful military than the Philippines, with more than double the budget, the troops and the warships, triple the jet fighters, more than 300 tanks (we have seven), plus submarines (sadly, one recently sank with all 53 crew lost).
The country is also farther away from China, making any military confrontation more difficult for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Then there is Indonesia’s capability to interdict shipping, including petroleum tankers carrying half of China’s energy imports, sailing through the narrow straits linking the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea.
Beijing would not want to cross such a strategically powerful nation. Nor would the Chinese play hardball with the first among equals in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and the most populous Muslim nation in the oil-rich Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
Indonesia and Widodo can play tough with China and Xi Jinping the way the Philippines and Duterte cannot.
Rising rumblings of war
But we have the United States backing us, Duterte critics may argue. Indeed, present and immediate past US Secretaries of State have declared just in the past year that our Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) with the US would apply to conflicts in the South China Sea, which is deemed included in the Western Pacific scope of the 1951 pact.
Other powers are also seen as ready to support the Philippines in defending our sovereign rights over our EEZ, which confers exclusive power to conduct or authorize economic activities in waters up to 200 nautical miles, or 370 kilometers from the territorial baselines circumscribing our main islands.
The European Union has criticized China’s maritime activities as undermining stability in the region. British, French and German warships have joined the US Seventh Fleet in challenging Beijing’s “nine-dash line” claim over nearly all the South China Sea, which was ruled in our arbitration case in 2016 as contravening the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos), the global treaty awarding EEZs.
China, however, has reiterated its claim and told the Philippines to respect it by ceasing exercises by the Philippine Coast Guard and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources. Opposition Sen. Franklin Drilon said it’s time to call on our allies in confronting Beijing. The Armed Forces of the Philippines is also urged to join the US in naval patrols and to erect markers in waters and reefs we claim.
With all the talk of conflict and military action, one wonders why Duterte critics said he was wrong in warning about bloody war if we actually enforced our EEZ rights. Sure, one can file protests and denounce encroachments, but that doesn’t stop interlopers ignoring diplomacy and fishing without our authorization.
That has been happening, with hundreds of fishing vessels sailing daily in our exclusive zone. There have been detentions and charges, but these are done without much fanfare. When the arrest of Chinese fishermen was done with much publicity at Scarborough Shoal in 2012, we lost control of the rich fishing grounds we call Panatag.
Plainly, Duterte does not want another such confrontation overfishing. But he spoke of sending the Navy if the Chinese extracted oil — our exclusive right under Unclos in our extended continental shelf, or ECS, stretching 320 nautical miles, or 592 km from our baselines. Notably, Chinese President Xi Jinping also warned Duterte of hostilities if we engage in offshore drilling, during their 2017 closed-door meeting in Beijing.
Well, this time, those calling for greater maritime assertiveness think China will blink. Unlike what happened at Mischief Reef in 1995 and Scarborough Shoal in 2012, the US Navy and its allies pledge to stand by the Philippines. And that is supposed to make China back off. Will it?
In the midst of a global pandemic and the worst recession since World War 2, one must admire the President for refusing to risk any conflict, which would further sink not just our economy but the region’s, if not the world’s, especially if China and the West get into a shooting war. Never mind if his critics call him a coward and a traitor.
Duterte also knows that there are entities keen to actually get the PLA attacking our forces. Then he would be under immense pressure to bring in massive American forces with access to Philippine air bases, under the 2014 Enhance Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), which he has stalled precisely to avoid making the Philippines a strategic threat and target for China.
When Duterte warned of bloody war if our forces confronted China on the high seas, it wasn’t just shooting in the Spratlys he feared. That encounter could bring in America’s might — and wars — into our country.
(The first part was published last Thursday, April 22.)
Republished From Manila Times 29-04-2021