It is the US navy that squats deep inside China’s territorial waters, yet the US shouts to whole world that China is a threat to their freedom of navigation
It can be said that Philippine foreign policy was somewhat handed to us by the US as a consequence of the country’s colonization at the turn of the 19th century.
For that matter, the country was sold by Spain for $20 million and the sale marked the formal turnover of the country by geographically demarcating the boundaries that comprise the area in the Treaty of Paris on December 10, 1898.
The Treaty was the first formal agreement indicating the boundaries as within the territory of the Philippines as colony of the US and areas outside, particularly areas facing the South China Sea.
When the US and Spain signed the Treaty, it meant the areas demarcated outside were outside the Philippine territory or by the treaty limits.
The Philippines as a colony faithfully observed the boundaries demarcated in 1898.
Almost all countries, except Malaysia, Vietnam and this country, began to violate the treaty.
It was the Philippines that first claimed some of islands off the coast of Palawan when an alleged Philippine sailor Tomas Cloma claimed to have discovered a group of islands.
He called it “Freedom Islands” not knowing that they have long been occupied by Chinese fishermen.
Logically, areas outside the demarcation line are presumed to be not part of the Philippine territory.
To prevent Cloma from claiming ownership of his newly discovered islands, then President Marcos issued a presidential decree to prevent him from claiming ownership of the islands as his private property.
The rationale of the decree proclaiming Kalayaan Island a municipality of the Province of Palawan was justified by their proximity to the province which is within the 200- mile limit of the expanded exclusive economic zone (EEC) of the newly-approved UN Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS) in 1984 to which both the Philippines and China are members and ratified the convention.
Second, the Treaty of Paris set the first geological boundaries demarcating the Philippine archipelago from the rest of the countries in the South China Sea, to particularly segregate the island of Taiwan, which was closest to the archipelago, and to the countries littoral in the South China Sea, namely: the southern province of China, the whole of the Vietnam peninsula, Japan through some of the islands in Okinawa and later Malaysia after it gained independence and later formed a federation only to stretch its territorial sea to avail itself of the 200-mile limit under UNCLOS.
They all added as claimants to some of the islands in the South China Sea.
The important item is that Philippines’ claim over the Kalayaan group of islands is the said islands are within the 200-mile under UNCLOS but outside the Treaty signed in 1898.
The Philippines took advantage of the fact that China has not officially claimed the islands.
China then was a weak nation, and this is the reason why the Philippine wanted to claim Scarborough Shoal, an island 230 kilometers from the province of Bataan considered as the traditional fishing ground by Filipino fishermen and now contested by China.
It was only when US President Obama officially said China is an existential threat to the US and issued a policy called “Pivot to Asia” did the Philippines begin to look at China as the country’s potential enemy.
The US, from then on, made a vigorous political campaign against China insisting Taiwan can maintain its status as a separate state, a deviation from the original declaration the US recognizes only “one China,” and Taiwan is an integral part of China.
This is part of our original declaration when we extended diplomatic relations to the People’s Republic of China in 1975.
A twist in US policy against China was accelerated in the election of President Trump who was alarmed by the huge trade deficit against China reaching more than $800 billion.
This was followed by the imposition of tariffs.
In reality, the tariff resulted in taxing Chinese goods made by American importers.
The trade war escalated and intensified with the US avoiding direct confrontation.
For instance, the US once made a declaration it will not come to our side should China attack any of those islands claimed by us.
In fact, it relayed the message to our navy which was about to be blocked by the Chinese navy at the mouth of the Scarborough Shoal.
That resulted in a month-long standoff with our naval ships leaving the area with China from thereon guarding the area.
This strange and unusual conduct of the US is seen and interpreted today as a careful maneuver by the US to push the country into war with China over some of the disputed islands in the SCS and with Taiwan with the US avoiding direct confrontation.
It always gives itself a legroom to escape any tense situation.
On the other hand, China continues to enjoy trade preferences all because the US continues to manipulate the value of the dollar against other currencies through quantitative-easing or the unabated printing of the dollar to artificially increase its value and profit which today resulted in the rush to de-dollarize the currency challenging the dollar as the world’s international currency reserve.
Since 2016, the Philippines adopted hook, line, and sinker the US policy against China, and slowly we are losing many of our economic and developmental projects and export of our agricultural products which have all the markings of goodwill and friendship extended to us by China.
We maintain our loyalty to the US at the expense of the developmental projects because of the agitation of their erstwhile communist organization now working for the US interest.
There is no existing policy of the Philippines against Taiwan.
Yet, we have conflict against China because we happened to recognize Taiwan at the instigation of the USA.
We maintain our faith the US will keep their obligation to assist us against any country they have fostered as our enemy.
We added nine military bases under EDCA when there is no provision in our agreement the Philippines is obligated to defend Taiwan against China.
Even the US already made a declaration it will not come to our rescue should China invade any of those islands in the SCS.
Up to now, people wonder why the Philippines filed a case against China before the Permanent Arbitration Court.
Reviewing the provisions of the Treaty of Paris, the Philippines failed to cite a clear violation by China of our territorial waters.
What happens is the mere intrusion of Chinese fishing boats fishing in areas they believe as part of their territorial waters as they believe is an area belonging to them having been demarcated by the US and Spain as outside our territorial waters as far as the Treaty of Paris is concerned.
In fact, the US made a fuzz on the decision of the Philippine claim over China.
But what joy is there for the US to celebrate when it is not even a party or claimant to the disputed area in the South China Sea?
The most intriguing part of the PAC’s decision is the Philippines has joined the chorus of American subalterns in denouncing alleged harassment of ships allegedly for violating our right to freedom of navigation.
It is the US navy that squats deep inside China’s territorial waters, yet the US shouts to whole world that China is a threat to their freedom of navigation.