Analysts see China’s increasingly aggressive attacks on Philippine vessels in the South China Sea as a test of the U.S.-Philippines alliance. What happens next, they say, will depend largely on how Manila and Washington respond.
Dramatic footage released last week by the Philippine military showed Chinese coast guard personnel wielding knives, an ax and other weapons as they intercepted Philippine soldiers who were in rubber boats delivering supplies to a garrison at Second Thomas Shoal.
The June 17 clash was the worst so far in the escalating tension in the disputed waters, with several Philippine soldiers injured, including one who lost a thumb, according to Manila.
But while the Philippines tried to de-escalate the tension with diplomacy, analysts say future such incidents are likely.
“China will seek to push the Philippines further,” said Don McLain Gill, an international studies lecturer at De La Salle University in Manila.
“The main challenge here is to apply considerable cost on China in order for it not to illustrate this sort of behavior and turn it into something regular, like the same way it had regularized water canonning and ramming [of Philippine vessels],” he told VOA.
There have been several incidents in the past months in which Chinese coast guard ships blasted Philippine patrol boats with water cannons and performed dangerous maneuvers in attempts to stop resupply missions to Philippine troops stationed at the shoal.
The flash point of the conflict is the BRP Sierra Madre, a dilapidated warship that Manila deliberately ran aground in 1999 to stake its claim to Second Thomas Shoal, a maritime feature in the Spratly Islands that is within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.
China claims almost the entirety of the South China Sea, including the Spratly chain, based on historical maps that an international tribunal has ruled have no legal basis.
Parallel strand of negotiation
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., in his first media interview since the incident, acknowledged Thursday that more must be done than to just file diplomatic protests against China.
“We have [lodged] more than 100 protests already. … [What usually happens is] we summon the ambassador, we tell him our position, that we don’t want what happened, and that’s it. But we have to do more than that, so we are. We are doing more than just that,” Marcos told reporters Thursday, without elaborating.
But Collin Koh, a fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said there must also be a “parallel strand of negotiation and dialogue” between China and the United States to de-escalate the tension.
The United States is a treaty ally of the Philippines and is obligated to defend Manila against external armed attack, including in areas in the South China Sea.
Given the high stakes for all three countries, Koh said, China might listen to another superpower.
“I think in large part it will depend very greatly on U.S. signaling explicitly to China on things that it should refrain from doing, and it must come with a very explicit threat of repercussions or consequences,” Koh told VOA.
“If the messaging isn’t done clearly, then we are going to see a repetition of what's happening,” he added.
Mutual defense treaty
Marcos has ruled out invoking the mutual defense treaty over the latest incident, saying it could not be considered an “armed attack.”
Marcos had earlier said he wanted a review of the treaty, which was signed in 1951, to respond to the changing security challenges in the region.
The recent escalation might provide urgency for Washington and Manila “to expedite the process of defining particular provisions and enhancing consultations,” according to Gill of De La Salle University.
One such clarification was provided earlier this year by Marcos, who said the death of a Philippine serviceman in “an attack or an aggressive action by another foreign power” could trigger the treaty.
This specific requirement, however, might work in China’s favor.
“If you set the bar so high, then it means that you are allowing China to keep doing whatever it is doing just under that threshold,” Koh said, although he agreed that it was not yet necessary to activate the treaty.
“Nobody died and there were no other serious injuries other than the poor guy who lost his thumb. The question is: Are we going to be lucky in the future like that?” Koh asked.
