THE Chinese government is slowly starting to realize that with the pivot of the Philippine government back towards the good old US of A their carrot and stick diplomacy with the country has begun to unravel.
Their usually benign attitude towards our diplomatic protests over their continued violation of our sovereignty and territorial integrity is suddenly being met with more antagonistic approaches such as the recent water cannon incident where a Chinese coast guard ship fired a water cannon at a Philippine boat attempting to resupply a military outpost at the Ayungin Shoal and its eventual clamor for the Philippine government to honor its promise of removing the makeshift outpost comprising of a rusting ship beached along the shoal. Much earlier than this, there is another incident where a Chinese coast guard ship temporarily blinded some crew members of a Philippine Coast guard ship at the disputed West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) by using a military grade laser light.
These acts by the Chinese coast guard ships in the West Philippine Sea are downright deplorable in themselves, but seen in another light reveals the aggravation of China and its knee jerk reaction when it learned that the Philippines has once again established closer ties with the Americans. Their anxiety has likewise tripled when the Philippines and the USA reignited their pact under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) by increasing the number of so-called EDCA sites where the American military can preposition its soldiers and military equipment. This in effect dampened their eagerness to promote their campaign of eventually invading the democratic country of Taiwan which they claim is merely a province of China.
But the straw that will really break the camel’s back, so to speak, is when the Philippine government, through President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., signs a deal with Vietnam to enhance maritime cooperation between the two countries in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea). President Marcos has already surmised that the agreement with Vietnam, if it will be eventually formalized, “will bring an element of stability to the problems that we are seeing now in the South China Sea.”
Strong words coming from the president of the country and a statement that will surely further agitate the Chinese government into doing something more drastic to enforce their claim over the Spratly Islands and the whole of the South China Sea. But that is to be expected considering that Vietnam is also a claimant of several shoals, reefs and other areas in the South China Sea. It is well to recall that in 2014 an intense maritime dispute arose between China and Vietnam and sparked a diplomatic crisis of sorts when the former decided to put up a $1 Billion dollar state-of-the-art oil rig within the latter’s 200 nautical miles exclusive zone (EEZ).
Both of these countries, China and Vietnam, are communist states and yet we can see that when it concerns the South China Sea and the Spratly Islands, China will run roughshod over anybody that will stake a claim over it.
But with recent developments such as the warming of defense relationships between the country and USA, as well as the possible maritime pact with Vietnam, there is now a game of tit for tat between the Philippines and China in the on-going dispute in the South China sea. On the part of the country, it has already denied ever making a promise to remove the rusted bucket of a naval ship that serves as a military outpost in the Ayungin shoal while issuing a note verbale for the water cannon incident. And not to be outdone the country is now planning for a joint patrol with the US naval forces in the disputed islands.
Clearly both countries are now engaging in a tit-for-tat that is actually par for the course as the US continues to diplomatically engage its allies in South East Asia and to deter the aggressive behavior of China in this part of the world.
