China is using its aid to other countries in the COVID-19 pandemic to prevent pushback in its continuing aggression in the disputed South China Sea, a maritime law expert said Monday.
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Beijing is also using other claimant nations' pre-occupation with the pandemic to expand its control in the disputed waters, according to Jay Batongbacal, director of the UP Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea.
"One could argue that it is using this cooperation against any criticisms of China as a leverage against any actions or protests against China for its activities in the West Philippine Sea," he told ANC.
"This is taking place simultaneously with their medical aid and assistance and offers of cooperation on this pandemic."
Meanwhile, former Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio said Monday the Philippines should patrol the disputed areas in the South China Sea jointly with Malaysia and Vietnam to fend off Beijing’s assertiveness, which he said persisted even if many countries were grappling with the coronavirus pandemic.
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Carpio cited a Chinese warship’s “hostile” act of pointing its radar gun at a Philippine Navy ship patrolling the West Philippine Sea on Feb. 17, saying it was “just one step to firing.”
“We don’t do that because if we make a mistake, you can trigger an accidental war. Navies really do not do that unless you want to bully another country,” Carpio told an online forum with the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines.
Last week, Beijing received Manila's diplomatic protests following the incident.
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Batongbacal said there was a "sensitivity to timing" in Manila's filing of the diplomatic protests.
"During the intervening period you had all of the government playing up cooperation with China, with the expectations of donations, the sending of a medical team. All of that had to take place first before they could release information that a protest was actually made," he said.
The February incident between the Philippine Navy and a Chinese warship was also an escalation as this was the first time it happened in the history of the two nations' maritime dispute, Batongbacal said.
"We have not seen those kinds of action being taken against Philippine ships until this year," he said.
"That is regarded as a hostile act, an act of aggression. Such an action has caused a major diplomatic fallout."