Maybe it’s good-cop, bad-cop diplomacy.
Over the past month, then-Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto R. Yasay Jr., ousted last Thursday, and Defense Secretary Delfin N. Lorenzana piqued Beijing with remarks about Chinese maritime activities.
Weeks before his March 9 rejection by the Commission on Appointments over his past American citizenship, Yasay recounted that in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations foreign ministers’ meeting on Boracay island last month, “a number of ministers expressed concern over recent developments and escalation of activity in the [South China Sea] area, which may further raise tensions.”
That led to the last-minute postponement of Chinese Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng’s visit, scheduled late-February, to finalize initial agreements for Philippine infrastructure projects worth billions of dollars for China funding.
Plus: Foreign Ministry Spokesman Geng Shuang admonished: “Mr. Yasay’s recent remarks apparently deviate from the consensus of the two leaders [Presidents Xi Jinping and Rodrigo Duterte, and]…disagree with the overall stable situation of the South China Sea.”
In short, Beijing was not amused.
Not the time to tweak the dragon
Asean foreign ministers routinely express concern about South China Sea happenings, especially the military kind. And Yasay’s language could cover both anti-aircraft weaponry on Chinese-reclaimed islands in disputed waters, as well as the sailing thereabouts of a full-strength carrier task force led by the USS Vinsons, part of the Third Fleet, all the way from San Diego, California. So, what’s the big deal?
Well, China may just be extrasensitive these days, with tensions over North Korea’s ballistic missile launch, for which the 90-plane USS Vinsons probably forayed. Not to mention unsettling January pronouncements by Secretary of State-designate Rex Tillerson, later echoed by the White House, on restraining moves by the People’s Liberation Army Navy in the South China Sea.
Indeed, soon after the US Navy reported the USS Vinsons voyage, Chinese state media, including the PLA-linked Global Times paper, warned against provocative actions. It is the biggest US naval sortie hereabouts since 1995, when another well-escorted aircraft carrier sailed through the Taiwan Strait, amid Beijing’s hyperventilation, complete with missile firings, over independence stirrings on what it considered a renegade island province.
Thus, what could have been taken as Yasay’s even-handed summing up of Asean ministerial concerns over actions of both American and Chinese forces, elicited a double-barreled riposte from Beijing, provoking Foreign Ministry finger-wagging and delaying the formal go-ahead of massive projects offered during President Duterte’s October 2016 visit.
Wisely, the Philippine leader wasted no time in unruffling Chinese feathers, stressing “we will talk as friends” about issues. So, last week, Gao was finally in town, and initial agreements for several billion dollars’ worth of infrastructure were initialed, with more projects expected.
Here we go again
But relieved smiles in Manila and Beijing didn’t last. There came new smirks as the ink was drying on project contracts. Lorenzana had his exchange of critical remarks with China. And this time, Malacañang backed up, not played down, the expressions of concern.
First, Lorenzana said US pressure stopped China from building structures on Scarborough Shoal, seized by Beijing in 2012. It was reported last year that then-US President Barack Obama warned China not to repeat at the shoal the reclamation and construction done at Fiery Cross Reef and Mischief Reef.
Then, last week, Lorenzana publicly stated that Chinese vessels had been surveying the seabed in Benham Rise, a vast area off Northeast Luzon’s Pacific coast, where the Philippines obtained recognition of its exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and extended continental shelf (ECS) under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos).
Last Friday Presidential Spokesman Ernesto C. Abella chimed in: “We are concerned about the presence of a Chinese ship in Benham Rise, which has been recognized by the United Nations as part of the Philippines. The Department of National Defense has already notified the Department of Foreign Affairs [DFA] regarding this matter as we continue to assert our sovereignty over our territory.”
Under the Unclos, EEZs confer the sole right to exploit resources in waters within 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) from a country’s territorial baseline. ECSs, meanwhile, accord similar rights over the seabed up to 320 nm (592 km) from the baseline.
However, EEZs and ECSs are not part of the national territory, and do not confer full sovereign rights, which extend only up to 12 miles from shore and over the territorial seas within the archipelago’s baselines, including waters between major islands, like the Sulu Sea between Palawan and Mindanao.
Hence, beyond the Philippines’s 12-mile territorial boundary, the rest of Benham Rise is considered international waters open to innocent passage by foreign vessels, though not economic activities covered by the country’s EEZ and ECS rights.
Over the weekend, China retorted that its ships merely passed through and did not do exploration work, including the survey of possible underwater sites to park submarines, as Lorenzana alleged, based on allied intelligence.
The Defense chief also reportedly said that the DFA had sent several notes to Beijing since August, citing Chinese vessels in Benham Rise, but got no response. It is not clear whether the matter was brought up in top-level talks during Duterte’s October visit.
Nor did DFA Spokesman Charles C. Jose mention the notes cited by Lorenzana in the former’s brief statement last Friday about Benham Rise: “We are studying the matter in consultation with other concerned agencies.”
So, where is this going? There are parties keen to see frictions heat up, thereby justifying increased American military deployment and access to bases. But newly appointed Acting Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo will likely cool things down, unless Duterte reverses his own nonadversarial stance.
In May Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano is expected to take over the DFA, and his assertive style could raise temperatures again. Or maybe not—especially if he wants the coveted prize of getting Beijing to sign a binding Code of Conduct on the South China Sea at Asean meetings in the country this year.