Marcos loses Escoda; US nowhere to help
THREE collision incidents in the past week by which China Coast Guard (CCG) ships successfully prevented Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) vessels from entering Escoda (Sabina) Shoal in the Spratly Islands point to this shameful reality: The Ferdinand Marcos Jr. administration has de facto lost the area to China’s total control.
To send a clear message for the PCG vessels to stay away from the shoal, China the other day deployed to the area not just six of its CCG vessels but also one of its most powerful destroyers of the 055 type, its most modern and powerful destroyer-class ship
And as in the case of the Aquino III’s loss of Bajo de Masinloc two years ago, the Escoda case is due to the Philippine government’s idiotic moves, bordering on absurdity, to physically claim the disputed shoal and challenge the superpower’s naval might.
Such a move is totally insane, explicable only if the Marcos administration — as in the case of Aquino III in 2012 — expected the US to come to the succor of Philippine vessels, even if only symbolically, by escorting the PCG vessels from a distance.
Nowhere
The Americans were nowhere to help. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s declarations that the Mutual Defense Treaty was “ironclad” and that the Americans “had our back” were hollow promises.
The US, of course, wouldn’t lift a finger to help the Philippines for several reasons.
First, China obviously had discovered a novel way of enforcing its sovereignty in the Spratly Islands it controls or wants to control: By maneuvering its ships to block Philippine vessels from entering waters it claims it has sovereignty over and using water cannons to make navigation difficult for these vessels. The Mutual Defense Treaty is silent on whether these actions would be considered an armed attack against the Philippines or against its vessels, for which it is required to act under the treaty.
Furthermore, former secretary of state Henry Kissinger, decades back, had clarified that the MDT cannot be invoked in conflicts in disputed areas. The US and most countries in the world have officially declared that they are neutral over the conflicting claims of several countries.
Second, the US leadership knows full well that interfering in the Spratly Islands dispute, in which China is the major claimant and considers it a core national interest, will lead to armed conflict between the two nuclear powers and eventually to a thermonuclear war that would destroy the planet itself. To risk the extinction of our species because of a Philippine leadership’s blunders is insane.
Indeed, President Aquino III had tried unsuccessfully to beg for US President Obama’s help so we would not lose Scarborough Shoal in 2012. Instead, to resolve the situation, the US tricked the Philippines into abandoning the shoal, by lying to Ambassador Jose Cuisia that the Chinese had already agreed to a simultaneous withdrawal from the area. There was no such agreement.
nother demonstration of US aversion to any move that could lead to war with China at this time is the fact that in response to the Philippines’ arbitration suit against China in 2012, China transformed the reefs they occupied into artificial islands on which military installations were built. The US could do nothing to stop China’s moves, which projected its military power to the center of the South China Sea.
And third, the Aquino III and now Marcos government cannot see that the US has been playing them like puppets. The US now has what it had wanted: nine military bases it can use at will, within which it could have its missiles covertly aimed at China’s fortifications in the Spratlys, its coastal areas, and the Taiwan Strait that Chinese forces would have cross to invade their rogue province. Marcos, many think, is even dependent on the US for shielding his family’s estate from the unpaid balance of the billion-dollar claims by alleged human rights victims a US court had ordered them to pay.
Tragedy
The tragedy for the Philippines is that Escoda, also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan, had not been a flashpoint before. China didn’t even contest the Philippine confiscation in 1995 of the three Chinese buoys marking its claims in Escoda.
The Philippines, in the 2016 ruling of the arbitration panel in its suit against China, gave up its most powerful justification for claiming not just Escoda but most of the islands encompassed by the Kalayaan Island Group, created by the strongman Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr. in 1978 that annexed that area. It was Aquino III’s own lawyers who argued that the KIG was similar to China’s nine-dash line and did not comply with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos).
Now, Philippine officials, like ever-so-talkative PCG spokesman Jay Tarriela and even columnists in this paper, mindlessly say that Sabina is ours because it is well within our exclusive economic zone.
This is blatant ignorance of the fact that sovereignty claims, such as that which China made centuries ago over the Spratly Islands (Nansha Qundao to it) and affirmed by its laws in 1958 and 1992, are superior to EEZ claims, which took effect only in 1994. The Philippines, in fact, had not included Escoda in its suit as one of the shoals it claims. Tarriela demonstrates his ignorance of the arbitration suit when he says that the arbitration ruling affirmed our sovereignty over Escoda.
The Aquino III government shot itself in the foot when it asked the tribunal to rule that China’s coast guard vessels violated Unclos when these maneuvered to stop the PCG ships and civilian vessels from resupplying the BRP Sierra Madre at Ayungin Shoal. The panel ruled that such incidents are “quintessentially military” in nature beyond Unclos’ authority. That might as well apply to the Chinese moves in Escoda.
Back burner
What is tragic is that our leaders could have just retained the status quo in Escoda, i.e., putting the conflicting claims on the back burner and avoiding any open conflict with the Chinese, thus retaining the shoal as a “disputed area.” Now it has become, well, still a disputed area, but under Chinese control. We have practically turned over Escoda to the Chinese, which can — if it is challenged again in an international tribunal — decide to “establish facts on the ground” as they did in its seven reefs in 2012 by building an artificial island there.
But for some reason, the Marcos government moved in April to provoke the Chinese to take counter-measures. The PCG deployed on that month one of its newest and biggest ships, the BRP Teresa Magbanua, to Sabina Shoal.
The PCG claimed it was investigating reports that China was planning to build another artificial island there. PCG official Tarriela foolishly revealed the Philippine plot, saying that the Chinese suspected the Philippines would do what it did in 1998, which was to convert its ship into an outpost to claim Escoda.
Indeed, the Teresa Magbanua has been anchored at Escoda to this day. The Chinese have decided to block any ship going to the area that could increase the Philippine presence there or supply the Teresa Magbanua with fuel and food.
Decision
That decision led to the three instances in recent weeks in which PCG vessels collided with CCG ships. The PCG vessels always, of course, brought media with it, part of their plan to elicit international sympathy for it.
I don’t think that tack is working, as international media’s attention has been focused on bigger stories — the coming US elections, the Israel-Hamas war, which has spilled over to Lebanon, and the Ukraine-Russia war, of course.
China, in fact, has become so confident the US and its allies won’t pay much attention to the Escoda developments. In the past few days, it deployed not only six of its huge CCG ships but also a PLA Navy Type 055 destroyer at Escoda.
The authoritative US-based Naval News reported: “Official footage revealed in April 2022 suggests the type (055) is also capable of using a reportedly hypersonic antiship missile referred to as YJ-21. American official reports over years past repeatedly asserted that the Type 055 may be able to field an antiship ballistic missile in the near future.”
Fuel
When Teresa Magbanua runs out of fuel, I think it would even ask the CCG to tug it out of the shoal. That would be such an embarrassing sight not just for the PCG but for our country, thanks to their injudicious or lazy leadership.
President Marcos hasn’t even convinced the National Security Council nor consulted with Congress leaders for a last-resort strategy to prevent the loss of Escoda.
US propaganda strategists, of course, are happy with the developments as they bolster their depiction of China as the new Evil Empire.
This administration and the US’ well-financed propaganda apparatus claim that former president Rodrigo Duterte was servile to China. Duterte didn’t lose an island to China. Aquino III and Marcos Jr. did. Now, who are the patriots and who are the traitors, even because of sheer idiocy?
What policy toward China is correct? The one by which the Philippines loses no shoal or the one by which it loses a shoal?
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Marcos loses Escoda; US nowhere to help
Source: Breaking News PH
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