Air pollution and the smog coming from China’s factories must be severely clouding Chinese leaders’ thinking. How else do you explain their distorted claim that ancient historical maps showed China owned almost all of the sea from its coastlines without total regard for the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea? China raised the propaganda bar, ranting the United States is militarizing the region.
But wasn’t it China that militarized the region by building military installations from the shoals and reefs reclaimed from the sea? The US rebalancing of its military forces and pivot to Asia is not seen as a hostile act by nations in the region. Even Vietnam welcomed President Barack Obama this week. The former foes are drawn together by China’s aggressive moves in the region and its sweeping claim of nearly the entire South China Sea. Vietnam, like the Philippines, welcomed the US presence in Asia after China grabbed Scarborough Shoal and the Paracels from it. High on the Hanoi visit of US President Barack Obama is the US policy shift lifting the ban on the sale of weapons to Vietnam. This means Vietnam can now acquire modern military hardware, including warships and sophisticated jetfighters the US supplied treaty allies South Korea and Taiwan.
“Mindful of the past but focused on the future,” President Obama intoned in his address to the Vietnamese, referring to the long-drawn war between the US and Vietnam that cost hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides.. But there’s a new threat in the region and the end of the arms embargo would strengthen Vietnam’s security and sovereignty.
How times have changed.The former enemies are now friends and former friend China, which helped Vietnam in the war against the US, looms as the new enemy.
The polluted air in China must be so bad it has wafted to neighboring North Korea which has unhinged its leader and Chinese ally, Kim Jong-un. Pyongyang’s supreme leader has been firing missiles across Japan and threatening to send some to the US West Coast. Such provocative threats can only invite a preemptive first strike from Uncle Sam. How will China respond to an attack on its ally?
Beijing added the Philippines is escalating tension when Manila filed a case with the international arbitration court in The Hague challenging China’s sweeping claim in the South China Sea. What was a small country like the Philippines to do when its giant neighbor across the pond started bullying it and other claimants like Vietnam and Malaysia? Following international law and as a signatory to Unclos like China, Manila sought the ruling of The Hague court to define and delineate maritime borders in the disputed waters.
China’s arrogant response to The Hague’s ruling which is due to decide this year is not to recognize its jurisdiction by not participating in the legal proceedings. Beijing also made known it will not be bound by an adverse ruling by The Hague court.
China’s pollution problem has also taken its toll on its media and the people purveying propaganda- slanted news. A female newscaster, in a straight-faced delivery on national TV, claimed China owned the Philippines! So it’s not only the waters, the shoals, reefs and protruding rocks in the West Philippine Sea but also the other 7,107 islands.
China must be careful of what it wishes for. Spain, America and Japan occupied the Philippines but had to fight a rebellion from Filipinos who refused to bow to a foreign power.
If China cannot rein in Taiwan which it considers a renegade province, what more an independent country like the Philippines? Taiwan’s first woman president, Tsai Ing-wen, is cool to the One China Policy that Beijing wants Taipei to adopt. Cross-strait investments from Taiwan, however, continue to flow into mainland China.
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The incoming administration of president-elect Rodrigo Duterte has announced some Cabinet appointments, a few of which are controversial if not dubious. With the external threat of China facing the country, the government must convene the National Security Council, something the Aquino administration has failed to do. Retired Armed Forces General Hermogenes Esperon, named by Duterte as the National Security Adviser, has his job cut out for him.