A recent article by A. Gary Shilling in Bloomberg News analyzed why the unfolding of the so-called “Asian century” is being stalled. Shilling listed five major reasons for the obstacles to Asia’s golden age. Foremost of these roadblocks is the fear of war breaking out in the region.
For this scary scenario,, only China is to blame for building man-made islands on the South China Sea and converting them into military installations to advance its sweeping stake to nearly the entire resource-rich waters. This, despite conflicting claims from Vietnam. the Philippines, Malaysia and Taiwan.
The “tiger economies” of Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and even the Philippines should be contributing to the making of an Asian century but the shadow of war looms large in the horizon making foreign investors hedge. Asia is not new to being a theater of war. Aside from the war in the Pacific pitting Japan and the US, there were the Korean war between North and South, the Vietnam war and the India-Pakistan conflict.
The Philippines is passive instead of pushing its legal victory in the arbitral ruling in The Hague court repudiating China’s claim. President Rodrigo Duterte is bellicose with his words against the United States, the United Nations and the European Union, but not when it comes to China. The man seemed meek in denouncing China’s encroachment in the West Philippine Sea and lately also in Benham Rise.
Satellite images provided by Philippine allies showed Chinese ships activity in Benham Rise, an underwater landmass off the northeastern coast of Aurora and Isabela. Instead of confronting or at least seeking an explanation from his friend President Xi Jinping, the Philippine president appeared to accept China’s excuse of “innocent passage” in international waters. International satellite images showed otherwise—that the Chinese ships stayed in Benham Rise for more than a month apparently surveying the seabed which geologists believe to contain, oil, mineral resources and natural gas.
China’s stooge, the unhinged North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, is adding to the volatility in the region with his threat to send long-range ballistic missiles into South Korea, Japan and even as far as the US West Coast. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, in a caustic warning to Pyongyang, said “military options are on the table” if North Korea does not stop its missile rattling.
Aside from North Korea, the heady mix of nations in Asia with nuclear capability includes, China,India and Pakistan. Where does Russia come into the equation in the event the US decides to carry out a preemptive strike against North Korea?
JJ Ebro, former press and information attaché in the Philippine embassy in Washington and now a Virginia resident, wrote to say that Russia won’t join the fray as it does not want to see a rising China with which it has a territorial dispute on Amur. Moscow wants to recover Amur which former Russian Federation president Mikhail Gorbachev signed over to the Chinese. The world’s 10th longest river dividing the Russian Far East and Northeastern China, Amur is rich in fish species.
Ebro also pointed out that the year the Philippines-US Mutual Defense Treaty was signed in 1951 and not 1956 which I mistyped in my recent column “Complacency.” He also expressed the view that Duterte had undermined the MDT when he threatened to scrap the PHL-US war exercises enhancing Philippine defense capability.
Despite Duterte’s plan to downgrade the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement and the US-Philippine war games, it is reassuring to have the USS Fitzgerald, a guided missile destroyer docked at Subic naval base in Olongapo. The USS Vinzon aircraft carrier is also conducting a freedom of navigation patrol in the South China Sea.
The US warships form part of the US Seventh Fleet in the Pacific in line with America’s pivot to Asia with the aim of establishing a forward position and remaining a Pacific power.
How does China with its only aircraft carrier, the Lioning, stack up against the US armada equipped with armaments for modern warfare? China may have the world’s largest army but ground war has been replaced with the advent of missiles and nuclear warheads.
I may sound like a broken record for taking China to task for its transgression on Philippine territorial waters. But someone if not me has to do it. I do not have anything against the Chinese but its leadership in Beijing has to be told that bullying smaller neighbors is unacceptable.