Manila eyes new South China Sea
horizon By Richard Javad
Heydarian
In what appears to be a
conscious effort to mend increasingly frayed
relations with Beijing, the Aquino administration
has been, in recent months, trying hard to restore
a semblance of normality in bilateral ties.
Cognizant of China's growing economic and
political clout - most visible in the Southeast
Asian region, where China is the region's biggest
trading partner - and immense sensitivity to increasingly
revitalized Philippine-US
military relations, Manila has engaged a cocktail
of strategies to calm Chinese nerves, prevent a
disastrous diplomatic-economic fall out, and set
the stage for a more cooperative relationship with
the new leadership.
Meanwhile, President
Obama's decision to skip the Philippines (again)
in his current Asian visit has added a greater
element of urgency to restoring Philippine-China
ties. Surely, as Manila laments Washington's
diplomatic snub amid such a sensitive period in
Sino-Filipino relations, it finds greater
rationale to de-escalate territorial tensions.
Taking China's threats seriously
The Aquino administration's strategic
calculus is hinged on an assumption that as long
as territorial tensions are kept below a specific
threshold, with America's (unfolding) pivot
serving as an implicit deterrent, it is always
possible to cajole China into an amicable
settlement over disputed territories - allowing
both sides to save face and irreversibly shun
direct confrontation.
In Manila's
estimation, the tipping point was reached
somewhere around April this year, when both sides
teetered on the verge of military confrontation,
as they squared off over the Scarborough Shoal.
However, since then Manila has taken a more
cautious and increasingly conciliatory approach
for two reasons.
First, a sober
appreciation of China's highly sensitive domestic
political environment: with communism losing its
ideological appeal, it's popular nationalism that
has gripped the nation, acting as a political glue
that binds an anxious communist party with an
increasingly restive society.
Watching
China's aggressive showdown with Japan over the
Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea in
recent months, Manila has recognized the depth of
Beijing's domestic dilemma: Despite the need for
maintaining strong economic relations with
neighboring countries, especially to sustain the
current pace of growth, the Chinese leadership
could (or perceives to) face a more severe
domestic political backlash if it is seen as
diffident over its territorial claims - so
embedded in Chinese psyche - in adjacent waters.
This is precisely why the Chinese leadership has
tolerated - if not partly encouraged - massive
protests against Japanese interests in recent
months, despite the tremendous associated
(diplomatic and economic) costs.
Second,
an anxious observation of America's equivocations
in terms of providing direct support to both the
Philippines and Japan at the height of recent
territorial spats with China in the South and East
China Seas. In Philippines' view, a provoked China
might not hesitate to throw its weight around the
South China Sea disputes, even in the absence of
long-standing historical enmity - like those
against imperial Japan - between Beijing and
Southeast Asian states such as the Philippines. A
lack of unconditional commitment by the United
States to the protection of its regional allies
has only exacerbated the matter.
China has
already been sending ominous signals to the US's
regional allies. Influential elements within the
Chinese leadership, especially the People's
Liberation Army (PLA), have regularly branded -
through open statements in major Chinese
newspapers - the likes of the Philippines and
Vietnam as agent provocateurs, who are said to be
fanning Sino-American tensions amid Washington's
pivots to the Asia-Pacific theater.
Earlier this year, the Global Times called
for "economic sanctions", blaming the Philippines
for stoking tensions in Sino-American relations,
while the Liberation Army Daily accused the
Philippines of hiding behind America's skirt by
stating, "The United States' shift in strategic
focus to the east and its entry into the South
China Sea issue has provided the Philippines with
room for strategic maneuver, and to certain extent
increased the Philippines' chips to play against
us, emboldening them to take a risky course."
Restoring balance Since 2010,
Sino-Filipino relations have been progressively
undermined by a bitter territorial conflict over a
host of features in the South China Sea (or 'West
Philippine Sea' in Manila's diplomatic lexicon).
The deterioration in bilateral ties has come
against the backdrop of booming diplomatic and
economic relations, especially during President
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's administration
(2001-2009).
What the Aquino
administration hopes to achieve is to revitalize
bilateral ties to (a) sustain a rowing economic
partnership and (b) avoid direct confrontation;
but, at the same time, he wishes not to jeopardize
his fiercely assertive (if not populist) stance
over Philippines' territorial claims.
In
mid-October, just weeks before Xi Jinping's ascent
to the helm of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP),
President Aquino, in a press conference with
international media, expressed his optimism in
restoring bilateral ties by stating, "There seems
to be a gradual, very gradual, warming up [in
Sino-Philippine ties] - I want to be very precise.
So we are hopeful that this gradual warming up
will be really warmed up by the time of the
transition. So we are taking a wait-and-see
attitude."
Recognizing the complexities of
China's "domestic pressures", he implored Beijing
to show more flexibility in their approach by
emphasizing, "[though] there will be pressures
leading up to the transition, we hope that these
domestic pressures in China will be lessened after
the transition so that we can have more room to
negotiate and to discuss in more reasonable terms
and less ultra-nationalistic [author's own
emphasis] tones."
Aquino hinted at how
Beijing's foreign posturing is entangled by the
trappings of growing popular nationalism among the
populace - a worrying policy handicap, which has
limited China's strategic wiggle room for dialogue
and compromise over territorial disputes in
adjacent waters. The Philippines' hope is for the
new leadership to transcend these limitations and
prioritize a rational pursuit of interests within
the broader international system.
Aquino
made his statements just days before
much-anticipated top-level bilateral talks between
the two country's deputy foreign ministers, the
so-called Foreign Ministry Consultations (FMC).
Reciprocating the Filipino leaders' encouraging
remarks, the Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman
Hong Lei stated, "China and the Philippines are
important neighbors to each other, China attaches
importance to China-Philippine relations, and is
willing to push forward a healthy and stable
bilateral relationship."
The October FMC
was extremely crucial, because it broke a long
period of de facto bilateral diplomatic hiatus,
with the previous FMC held as far back as January
(just four months before the flaring up of
tensions over the Scarborough Shoal) and a number
of bilateral dialogues and cultural events
cancelled due to heightening Sino-Filipino
tensions.
Room for cautious
optimism Beijing's "October surprise", the
well-handled FMC exchanges with Filipino
counterparts, proved largely a success for a
number of reasons.
First, the Chinese
envoy was led by Vice Foreign Minister Fu Ying,
who - as the former ambassador to the Philippines
(1992-2000) - has been largely familiar with both
the Philippines' political landscape as well as
its top leadership.
Second, Fu chose to
also meet Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary
Albert Del Rosario, who has had a particularly
difficult relationship with the Chinese
negotiators in the past few months. Back in June,
President Aquino sanctioned an attempt by an
up-and-coming Senator Trillanes to pursue backdoor
negotiations with China. The whole episode proved
to not only undercut Del Rosario's function as the
foreign policy chief, but it also exposed
Beijing's dismay with him.
According to
some commentators, Chinese diplomats preferred
Trillanes as an interlocutor, because they saw Del
Rosario as the chief architect of the
revitalization in Philippine-American military
alliance, obviously at China's expense. Fu's
decision to meet Del Rosario served as an
opportunity for China to mend ties with Del
Rosario, restore channels of communication, and
signal its willingness to negotiate with him on a
more amicable and institutionalized basis.
Third, the Chinese envoy expanded its
charm-offensive towards the Filipino leadership by
also meeting with leading legislators, most
especially the influential Senate President Juan
Ponce Enrile, who has been behind a vitriolic
criticism of the Trillanes-led backdoor
negotiations. Although claiming that he did not
touch on sensitive issues in his conversations
with the Chinese Vice Foreign Minister, Enrile
described his meeting with Fu in an affectionate
and upbeat manner - suggesting some good bilateral
report between major figures in both countries.
"She just paid me a visit because she's my
friend. She has been my friend when she was here,"
Enrile told the media about his meeting with the
Chinese diplomat. "She used to come to my office
to talk to me about some problems then of China,
especially when [senators] were discussing the
Visiting Forces Agreement with the United States.
[Fu will] understand that I am serving my country
and not anybody else in the same way that I would
understand she's serving her country and nobody
else."
It is far from certain whether the
new Chinese leadership under Xi Jingping will ever
contemplate a softer stance on its territorial
claims in the South China Sea, but what is clear
is that both sides are interested in preventing a
direct confrontation and/or a major diplomatic
fall out over ongoing territorial disputes,
without backing off from their populist
territorial position.
It's a tough
balancing act, which will require both strategic
foresight and some luck. In the end, depending on
the trajectory of regional territorial tensions
and the sincerity of America's pivot, the
Philippines might be pushed to throw in its lot
with either the Americans or the Chinese, which is
precisely what most regional leaders are trying to
avoid.
Richard Javad Heydarian
is a foreign affairs analyst focusing on Iran and
international security. He is the author of the
upcoming book The Economics of the Arab
Spring: How Globalization Failed the Arab World,
Zed Books, 2013. He can be reached at
jrheydarian@gmail.com
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