Marcos Jr. is grossly, dangerously ignorant of issues involving China

PRESIDENT Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s understanding of our relations with China is close to zero. Since he is the chief architect of foreign policy, as the Supreme Court has declared in several decisions, this could be disastrous for our country, and this could be soon.

First, he is ignorant about the Taiwan issue

In his press conference the other day, Marcos dramatically declared that “war over Taiwan will drag the Philippines kicking and screaming into the conflict.” Marcos though didn’t explain why this is inevitable — other than the necessity of having to evacuate our 150,000 overseas Filipino workers there if indeed “war breaks out.”

But that would not necessarily drag us into the conflict. Indonesia and Vietnam each have more workers there (300,000 and 278,00, respectively) that they have to evacuate, but both countries certainly won’t be dragged into the war. Both countries in fact have long ago declared that Taiwan is an integral part of China.

Marcos thinks Filipinos are so stupid he need not explain why we will be dragged kicking and screaming into the conflict, and the timid Malacañang press corps, as usual, didn’t ask why. He also pretends that he cannot understand why Chinese officials called his stance “playing with fire.”

The reason that we will be dragged into the war is that Aquino III and then Marcos Jr. have made us into a vassal, a puppet of the US, whose command the president will obey when China reclaims its rogue province by force, and America comes to its aid.

Marcos in fact increased from five to nine the number of bases the US military will use both as staging grounds for their forces, storage of their war materiel and missile launching pads. Three of these were obviously intended for a US war to defend Taiwan: Naval Base Camilo Osias and Lal-lo Airport in Cagayan province as well as Camp Melchor de la Cruz in Isabela.

Strike

China could undertake a first strike against these EDCA (Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement) bases minutes before it invades Taiwan. I would strongly suggest that our countrymen living in Puerto Princesa and Cebu move elsewhere as these two EDCA sites are actually where two international airports are which if the conflict gets bad, will likely be nuked by the Chinese:

– Antonio Bautista Air Base in Puerto Princesa, Palawan — which effectively uses the runway and facilities of Puerto Princesa International Airport.

– Benito Ebuen Air Base in Mactan, Cebu — which similarly utilizes Mactan-Cebu International Airport for military access and potential operations.

Marcos is so ignorant that he is not aware that he can actually take steps to avoid us being dragged into a conflict, which could result in the nuclear devastation of Cebu and Puerto Princesa. He could just declare that the Philippines is adhering to the 1975 agreement between China and the Philippines that his father signed with Premier Zhou Enlai, which has been affirmed by succeeding presidents. (It is amazing indeed that Marcos Jr. witnessed the signing of this momentous event yet this seems to have been erased from his memory.)

The joint communique on the agreement reads: “The Philippine Government recognizes the Government of the People’s Republic of China as the sole legal government of China, fully understands and respects the position of the Chinese Government that there is but one China and that Taiwan is an integral part of Chinese territory.” It broke off all diplomatic relations with Taiwan in a month’s time.

The Philippines is joined by more than 180 countries recognizing the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the sole legitimate government. However, the US think tank the Lowy Institute reports that only about 89 countries — roughly 46 percent of UN member states — have explicitly combined their endorsement of the One China policy with support for PRC efforts toward “national reunification.” Furthermore, the US, UK, Canada, Australia and Japan follow a more ambiguous approach — accepting the PRC’s claim without explicitly endorsing its reunification agenda.

Province

This, however, for us means that Taiwan is merely China’s rogue province, just like Muslim Mindanao would have been if the MILF and the MNLF had succeeded in their secessionist movement in the 1970s. Under Marcos Sr.’s 1975 agreement, China’s invasion of Taiwan would be a domestic matter, and the US defense of the island would be of the same character if Libya and other Arab countries had helped the MNLF in the 1970s to secede Muslim Mindanao secede from the Philippines.

Vietnam and China have officially declared that Taiwan is an inseparable part of China, and would not oppose its reunification. Marcos shouldn’t worry that the country will be dragged kicking and screaming into the conflict if China invades Taiwan, if only he invokes his father’s agreement with Zhou Enlai. Or does the US really hold him by the balls?

Second, Marcos is ignorant that we’ve lost Panatag Shoal

The chief architect of our foreign policy does not know or refuses to accept the reality that President Aquino III lost Scarborough Shaol (Panatag or Bajo de Masinloc) to China in the 2012 standoff. *

After 10 weeks of the standoff, President Aquino III and then-Foreign secretary Albert del Rosario ordered our remaining two vessels to abandon the shoal. Being so pro-America, they believed Kurt Campbell, the then US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, who told del Rosario — through our Ambassador Jose Cuisia — in June 2012 that China had agreed to a mutual pullout from Scarborough Shoal. There was never such an agreement but only preliminary talks for such a pullout. Only the Philippine vessels left Panatag, leaving the Chinese vessels in total control of the shoal. * (This is discussed in detail, with sources cited, in my book “Debacle: The Aquino regime’s Scarborough fiasco and the South China Sea arbitration deception,” available at my website, amazon.com and Fully Booked.)

The US did that because it was afraid that that Aquino III and del Rosario really wanted a violent confrontation at Panatag Shoal in which Filipino vessels would be sunk, and their sailors killed. This would have triggered a Philippine demand for US assistance invoking the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty. The Obama administration, however, feared that this could lead to an all-out war with China which it didn’t even want. With US elections late that year, Obama wanted the South China disputes to be quieted down.

No country in the world, not even the US, protested the Chinese takeover of the shoal, since it didn’t violate any international law, which banned only a violent occupation of a disputed territory.

China formally declared straight baselines around Scarborough Shoal (which it refers to as Huangyan Dao) on Nov. 10, 2024, an action formalizing it as a well-defined area that is part of its territory. China’s baselines were announced via a statement and geographic coordinates filed with the United Nations, marking a new legal claim over the surrounding maritime zone. The Philippines has not declared such baselines covering the shoal.

Vietnam

Only the Philippines protested the baselines declaration. No other foreign government, not even the US, has publicly issued formal protests specifically targeting China’s baseline declaration around Scarborough Shoal. Vietnam, the other major claimant of South Sea China areas, did not protest China’s action as the shoal has never been part of its claimed territories nor maritime zones. Aquino III lost Bajo de Masinloc to China 13 years ago, and each year it strengthens its claim that it is its territory, by that major means of acquiring territory called “effective occupation.”

The Aquino III and Marcos Jr. administrations have strived to bury this reality by occasionally sending vessels to the Scarborough Shoal area to challenge China’s authority. These of course are routinely blocked, often by water-cannoning the Philippine ships, now not just by the China Coast Guard but by its Navy. China has claimed it has been merely defending its territory.

These incidents, however, have given the Philippines fodder for portraying the fallacy that China is grabbing the former’s territory.

It is really hilarious that Marcos has boasted so often, whenever Scarborough Shoal is the topic at hand: “We will not give up a square inch of our territory.” We’ve already lost — or at least Aquino III did — 233 billion square inches, the shoal’s area, including its inner lagoon.

It won’t be hilarious though when China tires of the Philippines’ occasional challenges, and forcibly drive our vessels out of Scarborough Shoal’s territorial sea, which would result in the drowning of our sailors and government employees.

That’s what China’s spokesman meant when he warned Marcos that the Philippine government shouldn’t be playing with fire — which the president said he didn’t understand at all.

We’ve become the laughingstock in Asia for Marcos announcing to the world that the country will join the US to defend Taiwan from China. How could we have a president enjoining his navy and coast guard not to back down in defending Panatag since it is our territory, when all the world now sees it as Chinese territory?

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Marcos Jr. is grossly, dangerously ignorant of issues involving China
Source: Breaking News PH