The victims and prospective victims of the Chinese Communist Party’s territory-grabbing belligerence are not always as supine as the Chinese government would prefer. The targets may start out that way. But sometimes they get a better idea of what they’re up against and revise policy accordingly.
Not long ago, the Philippines was somewhat meeker in its dealings with pushy China than it is now under the Marcos administration, which today tells the world that it will not allow “any foreign power to take even one square inch of our sovereign territory.”
In October 2023, the Washington Post reported that Marcos’s “resolve to push back against China has been hardening over the past 10 months, fueled by continuing Chinese harassment and several instances when Philippine attempts at de-escalation have been rebuffed by Beijing, according to more than a dozen Western, Philippine, and other Asian senior officials and diplomats.”
Top aides in the Marcos administration have pursued a campaign to publicly expose Chinese incursions in this strategic part of the Pacific Ocean, which Filipinos call the West Philippine Sea. The response has been outrage domestically and among allies of the Philippines, further reinforcing the president’s approach, political analysts say.
The president’s posture would have been unexpected a year ago, when Marcos rose to power in part by allying himself with former president Rodrigo Duterte, who spent his six-year term seeking closer relations with China while lashing out at the United States and many of the Philippines’ other traditional allies.
The world has almost 200 countries. Maybe only a dozen or so are close enough to the Philippines to cause any trouble for it by way of claiming if not periodically invading territory that is also claimed by the Philippines. And the Philippines has quarreled with more than one of these countries over territorial claims.
But there really is only one country that every non-China country in the South China Sea region is extra worried about, and that country is China. There are other bad-actor countries in this part of the world. But at least in the South China Sea and in interior regions near China’s border, nobody is currently as pushy and brazen and indifferent to precedent, international adjudication, and common sense as China.
To cope with the behemoth, the Philippines has teamed up with Japan. It is also getting together with Australia, not so very far to the south (“Australia, Philippines in firm and fast lockstep against China,” Asia Times, March 2, 2024).
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese [shown above, with Marcos] hailed the Philippines as a “strategic partner” and signed multiple deals with Marcos Jr aimed at cementing “enhanced maritime cooperation” while vowing to “collaborate even more closely to promote our shared vision for the region.”
In response, a state-backed Chinese newspaper slammed Marcos Jr’s address as a cynical ploy “to drag [an] ally into provocative strategy”, arguing that the Philippines is rallying Western powers to keep China’s ambitions in the South China Sea in check.
In many ways, Australia hopes that Marcos Jr’s address sets the tone for the upcoming summit with Southeast Asian leaders. But while Philippine-Australia bilateral relations seem to be on an upward trajectory, if not entering a new “golden era”, it’s unlikely that other ASEAN leaders will follow through….
In addition to the Global Times article about how Marcos is trying to “drag [an] ally into provocative strategy,” Asia Times also cites a February 29, 2024 Global Times piece on how “Manila’s attempt to rally external forces on S. China Sea issue will only backfire.”
According to the CCP rag GT, “Marcos was playing his old trick—attempting to play the victim card, portraying China as ‘bullying’ the Philippines in the South China Sea to garner more international support and exert pressure on China.”
The truth, eh? That old trick? Well, it’s always worth a shot.
Also see:
StopTheChinazis.org: “Japan to the Rescue in the South China Sea?”
“The Chinese…negotiate while militarily asserting their territorial claims via harassment and occasional violence. Given Beijing’s hard line, it would be interesting to know what exactly is being negotiated. Perhaps China is negotiating for a Hong-Kong-type turnover of various islands. Perhaps for the terms under which competing claims will be surrendered.”
StopTheChinazis.org: “The Spratly Agenda”
“In one recent incident, the Chinese Coast Guard, sailing in Philippine waters, discovered Philippine fishermen collecting sea shells on Scarborough Shoal. Hundreds of miles from China’s coasts, China’s Coast Guard forced them to return the shells to the shoal and leave. The shells thus seem to be ‘Chinese property.’ In that sense, the air over the Spratlys is also ‘Chinese property’ and will eventually contain Chinese warplanes, sent to keep the surrounding waters Pinoy-free.”
