“Our decision not to accept a direct negotiation, regretfully, was a fatal and complete mistake on our part”
THE country’s foreign experts, instead of simplifying our squabble with China in the South China Sea, complicated the issue.
First, they allowed countries outside of the geopolitical equation to form, create and join the expanded pact by calling for a new alliance, called the “Indo-Pacific,” to justify the participation of India, Canada, United Kingdom and isolate China.
An expanded Indo-Pacific alliance could metamorphose to the formation of a new pact similar to that of NATO that by then would justify the inclusion of new members to add teeth to the containment of China, the same strategy which the West employed to contain Russia’s alleged expansion into Ukraine.
If the Philippines accepted the offer of China to directly negotiate in the Scarborough Shoal issue, that would have instantly solved our problem in the South China Sea.
Our decision not to accept a direct negotiation, regretfully, was a fatal and complete mistake on our part, as most political analysts observed.
Second, we rejected the offer to negotiate for a more definitive boundary in the South China Sea, which the US and Spain agreed to without the Philippines made a party to the treaty.
The problem in the South China Sea is the Philippines, goaded to go to war against China, is not a party to the Treaty of Paris signed on Dec. 9,1898 that demarcated those boundaries.
Neither is China a signatory to the agreement, for obviously the People’s Republic of China has yet to exist as an independent political entity.
As part of our territory under the Treaty of Paris in 1898, Spain ceded the whole archipelago and nearby islands to the US.
Our refusal to engage in a direct negotiation with China over those contested islands in the Scarborough Shoal exposed the truth about our motivations for the area.
Our hidden agenda maybe for our own security and economic interest, we allowed ourselves to be party to a proxy conflict with China, thereby justifying our need to strengthen our military alliance with the US.
It is our military alliance with the US that puts justification and semblance to the presence of a naval flotilla in the South China Sea.
We cannot now ask a third party to intervene because of the presence of its military bases, and of its alliance with the Philippines, a non-signatory to the Treaty of Paris.
Third, immediately after the offer to negotiate was rejected by the Philippines and soon after the President Bongbong Marcos Jr. was elected President, his pro-American ambassador to the US announced he would increase the number of US military bases in the Philippines to 10.
Effectively, the announcement made a complete turnaround of the Philippines as a neutral country in the South China Sea.
Fourth, the insistence by the US its presence in the South China Sea is to assure that freedom of navigation is observed by all countries.
Strictly, speaking, China divested the US and he Philippines of its right to freedom of navigation.
By having military bases in the archipelago, the US and the Philippines have practically lost all their rights to freedom of navigation.
Their bases in the archipelago make the two countries belligerent parties against China. This also explains why the passage of the US and those having existing alliance with the US and West cannot pass through the Strait of Taiwan. It is their collateral alliance with the US and the use of the Strait that could convert the area for US hegemonism.
The establishment of US military bases peripheral to the Strait of Taiwan negates whatever claim which the US, Philippines and its allies in the region over its right of freedom of navigation.
To insist on freedom of navigation while there exists a string of bases in the Strait is giving the US the right to recognize a de facto Monroe Doctrine in the Strait.
No doubt, China will never tolerate this arrangement. That will run counter to their position of One China policy and that Taiwan is just part of China. rpkapunan@gmail.com
