There is a reason Beijing resists multilateral approaches to the territorial disputes in the South China Sea. It is called divide and conquer.
In bilateral discussions with claimants to parts of the disputed waterway, China can easily apply its economic and military heft to its advantage against smaller, less powerful states. These advantages, however, can be offset if smaller countries band together in a common cause against Chinese aggression in the region.
And let there be no mistake. Despite paying lip service to “a peaceful settlement of disputes through negotiation” and its readiness “to safeguard peace and stability in the South China Sea,” China has been acting like an aggressor in the region, since three Chinese naval vessels fought a 90-minutes battle with a Philippine Navy gunboat in 1996 in the Mischief Reef, part of the Spratly chain of islands that Manila claims, and its 2012 takeover of the Scarborough Shoal, where regular Chinese patrols prevent Filipino fishermen from accessing the waters.
Certainly, the new law that China has passed authorizing its coast guard to fire on foreign vessels in the disputed waters is yet another act of aggression.
In particular, the law mandates the Chinese coast guard to “take all necessary measures, including the use of weapons when national sovereignty, sovereign rights, and jurisdiction are being illegally infringed upon by foreign organizations or individuals at sea.”
The law would also allow personnel of the Chinese Coast Guard to “demolish” other countries’ structures built on China-claimed reefs and to board and inspect vessels in waters claimed by China.
It also empowers the Chinese coast guard to create temporary exclusion zones to stop other vessels and personnel from entering.
The Philippines has protested the new law but such bilateral actions have had little effect on Chinese bullying.
Retired Chief Justice Antonio Carpio suggests that the Philippines and other Southeast Asian countries like Vietnam and Malaysia take their case to a United Nations tribunal to declare the law void as it violates not just the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) but the UN Charter itself.
University of the Philippines professor Jay Batongbacal, on the other hand, said the Philippines, other claimant states of the disputed South China Sea, and allies should come up with a unified position to push back against the controversial law.
“This law basically authorizes the China coast guard to use force in its attempt to exercise jurisdiction over these claimed waters,” Batongbacal said. “All of us who are affected, plus our allies and friends, should come together and express a common position against this law in order to keep China from implementing it.”
There is, after all, strength in numbers. It’s time China was reminded of this.