The China-Philippines spat took a new twist recently, when the Chinese used overwhelming force to harass and evict the BRP Teresa Magbanua, a multi-role Philippines Coast Guard ship, from the Sabina or Escoda Shoal, where it was stationed since April following China’s attempt to stake claim to the shoal.
Barely 75 km from the islands of Palawan, the largest province of the Philippines, an Archipelagic nation, the Sabina shoal is clearly well within well within the territorial jurisdiction of the Philippines.
But not only did over 60 Chinese ships blockade the BRP Teresa Magbanua, preventing it from being resupplied, it was also rammed several times by a much larger Chinese Coast Guard vessel, causing substantial damage.
Separately, the Chinese announced that as part of a deal, they had “allowed” the Philippines to resupply the BRP Sierra Madre, a landing vessel of the Philippines Navy which had been deliberately run aground on the second Thomas Shoal in the Spratly Islands in 1999, to stake claim to the archipelago, parts of which are also claimed by China, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei. The Philippines and Chinese Coast guards have had several run-ins over Manila’s attempts to resupply the marines stationed on the Sierra Madre.
This “deal” is “separate from what happened to the Teresa Magbanua,” explains Prof Renato Cruz De Castro, Distinguished Professor at the International Studies department of De La Salle University in Manila.
Speaking to The Gist on the sidelines of the 2024 edition of the Indo-Pacific Regional Dialogue held at the sprawling Manekshaw Centre Auditorium in Delhi Cantonment October 3-5, Prof. Castro refused to mince his words as he categorically blamed Beijing for its aggressive posturing in the South China Sea, and explained why the Philippines was among the few countries in the region which was not afraid to push back against the increasing belligerence of the much larger People’s Republic of China.
“We have a deal with the them (the PRC) in terms of the resupply of the Sierra Madre,” he said. “That was a provisional deal, and the first premise of that was that we would not compromise our positions. The Chinese position is that they own the waters, our position is that they don’t.
“The basic agreement was that we were allowed a resupply mission (to the Sierra Madre) without being harassed by the Chinese.” But later, the Chinese changed the discourse and said “we are simply allowing the Filipinos to resupply.” This basically undermined out position that these are international waters. By saying we “accepted their permission”, they are implying that we “tacitly accept that they own the waters.”
The other issue is that “they exerted so much pressure on the Philippines, tantamount to a blockade,” he said. “They prevented two of our coast guard vessels from resupplying the BRP Teresa Magbanua, by deploying 48 Chinese maritime militia ships, their Coast Guard and of course their navy, all in one operation. This is just extreme pressure.
“So we were forced to resupply the Teresa Magbanua by using a helicopter. But since a helicopter could only carry limited supplies, a number of the crew members got sick.” The Chinese basically used their overwhelming naval capability to “force us to withdraw the Teresa Magbanua,” he said.
“So our position now is that we will continue patrols, but not on the same scale as the Teresa Magbanua which was stationed, or anchored there. We are still sending ships and planes, but they are mobile, just to show the flag,” he explained.
Speaking about how the Philippines had changed its strategy on tackling the Chinese belligerence, he said “there is this popular notion that for six years, under former President Rodrigo Duterte, the policy was characterised by appeasing China. And that changed under the presidency of his successor and current President “Bongbong” Marcos Junior.”
However, the change actually started during the fag end of Duterte administration, says Prof. Marcos.
“During the last two years of the Duterte administration, he realised that “appeasing China would lead you nowhere. Because China would never offer you any concession, China will never moderate its behaviour in the South China Sea,” or fulfil its offer to provide investment form infrastructure development of the region.
So during his last two years, Duterte started moving closer to the United States, and built up the armed forces of the Philippines. Duterte, and subsequently Marcos, realised that if we dropped our alliance with the United States, China would simply consider you meat on the table,” said Prof Castro.
Marcos also realised that “China will simply subjugate you regardless of whether you appease it or challenge it. So what’s your choice? Challenge China, because anyway you will get the same result.”
So apart from building up its armed forces, renewing its security alliances with democratic nations like the US, Japan, Australia, “and of course India, a very important which recently provided us with the Brahmos missile,” what else does Manila propose to do to protect itself against further Chinese belligerence in the region? And how has China — and other nations in the region—reacted to this pushback?
Watch the full episode to find out.
