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Chinese sailors armed with axes and machetes threaten Filipino sailors on a supply run, 17 June, 2024.
Marcos cools temperature in South China Sea
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. attempted to de-escalate tensions between Manila and Beijing this Saturday following last week’s violent maritime confrontation during a resupply mission to the Second Thomas Shoal. Chinese forces last Monday rammed Philippine navy boats, confiscated rifles and inflatable craft, and attacked sailors with axes and machetes.Five seamen were treated for injuries including one who lost a thumb.
“We are not in the business of instigating wars,” Marcos said at a ceremony awarding medals to soldiers involved in the mission, but added: “We will never be intimidated or oppressed by anyone.”
Marcos refused to invoke his country’s 1951 mutual defense treaty with the US,which condemned China’s actions, as did the European Union, Japan, Australia, and other Western and Asian nations. Washington has made it clear to Beijing thatthe treaty requires it to defend Philippine forces if they are attacked.
In what some are calling a concession to China, Marcos also approved a recommendation by the Philippine National Maritime Council to publicize the navy’s schedule for supply runs to the Shoal. Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin suggested that China’s lack of prior knowledge about the latest missionmay have triggered the confrontation. We’ll be watching whether improved communication can keep a lid on Beijing’s aggression in the area.FILE PHOTO: Chinese Coast Guard vessels fire water cannons towards a Philippine resupply vessel Unaizah on May 4 as it made its way to the Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea, March 5, 2024.
Filipino fisherman fleet floats toward fraught waters
A flotilla of Philippine fishing vessels was put to sea Wednesday to assert sovereignty over the disputed Scarborough Shoal — where China has dozens of ships waiting for them. Chinese vessels have injured sailors with water cannons over disputed shoals in the South China Sea before, so Manila has dispatched Coast Guard vessels and an aircraft to monitor the situation.
The exercise is organized by NGOAtin Ito (“This is ours” in Tagalog), which plans to deploy symbolic buoys and leave supply caches for fishermen on the atoll. Anglers from the Philippines, Vietnam, and China have all used the low-lying lagoon to shelter their vessels from storms for centuries, but in 2012, Beijing used Coast Guard vessels to seize it. A UN tribunal rejected China’s claim in 2016, but Beijing has ignored the ruling.
China’s intransigence has created a dangerous situation. Both sides see their claims to the South China Sea as a sovereignty issue and aren’t willing to drop disputes over the uninhabited shoals. China’s behavior is already pushing the limit by immobilizing Filipino ships and injuring their crews, knowing Manila can’t respond effectively. If China should kill a sailor, however, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has said he could activate the defense treaty with the United States — which US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin vowed to uphold last month — and China can’t play grabass with the 7th Fleet.
We’re watching to see how many civilian flotilla boats make it to the Scarborough Shoal, and how aggressively China’s Coast Guard responds.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and US. President Joe Biden walk to the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC.
Despite big US trip, Philippine leader still walks a Chinese tightrope
On Monday, US President Joe Biden welcomed Philippine President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. to the White House almost 41 years after the latter's dictator dad had his last huddle with Ronald Reagan. (Fun fact: Thanks to diplomatic immunity, Bongbong visits America without fear of arrest despite an outstanding $353 million contempt of court fine over a lawsuit linked to the elder Marcos's human-rights abuses.)
More importantly, the five-day trip comes at what is being billed as an inflection point in US-Philippine ties over ... China. Since taking office in mid-2022, Bongbong has departed from the blatantly pro-Beijing policies of his predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte. That has included opening up more Philippine military camps to US forces to police the disputed South China Sea and defend Taiwan from a hypothetical Chinese invasion.
Yet, if you look closely, Bongbong is doing more of a course correction than a full U-turn. He visited China early in his term before going to the US and has been careful to avoid any fiery rhetoric that might irk Xi Jinping. Washington would love to have Manila firmly in its corner — despite Biden not being a fan of the Marcoses — but Bongbong would rather keep his country out of the crossfire of the growing US-China rivalry.