A flaring up of an old territorial dispute is threatening to create a rift between China and the U.S.-backed Philippines.
On Wednesday, August 9th, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, denied being aware of an agreement with China to remove a WWII-era warship, the Sierra Madre, which for 25 years has served as a military outpost in a hotly-contested part of the South China Sea.
If there ever did exist such an agreement, the leader continued, he would rescind it “as of now.”
The Philippines maintains a handful of troops aboard the Sierra Madre at the Second Thomas Shoal—known by Manila as Ayungin Shoal and by Beijing as Ren’ai Jiao—which is located inside its 200-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
On Monday, August 7th, China accused the Philippines of reneging on an “explicit” promise to tow the ship, which the latter had deliberately grounded in 1999 in a bid to mark its territory.
Earlier, Jonathan Malaya, National Security Council assistant director general for the Philippines, had challenged China to produce evidence of such a promise.
“If China is talking about a legally enforceable agreement, a commitment that’s legally binding then we challenge them to produce that agreement signed by a duly authorized representative of the Philippines saying that we promise to abandon or to tow away BRP Sierra Madre,” Malaya said.
On Wednesday, China’s embassy in Manila released a statement, which stressed that Ren’ai Jiao had “always been part of China’s Nansha Qundao [a group of over 100 low islands and coral reefs in the central South China Sea, which is the subject of a territorial dispute between China and some Southeast Asian nations, including the Philippines], and that China’s position on it was “consistent and firm.”
While the shoal has historically been a source of friction between China and the Philippines, which nonetheless have maintained a strong trade relationship, tensions soared last Saturday.
During an incident, China’s coast guard had used a water cannon, in what Manila slammed as an act of interference with a resupply mission to the Sierra Madre.
In response, Manila summoned the Chinese ambassador to protest, while Beijing defended its maneuver as “professional and restrained.”
The Philippines was “committed to maintain” the dilapidated ship, Malaya said, adding it was “our symbol of sovereignty in a shoal located in our EEZ.”
While an exclusive economic zone gives a country the right to fish and exploit other natural resources within 200 miles of its coast, it does not grant actual sovereignty over that territory.
Malaya however went on to say that the Philippines’s right to that territory had been affirmed by an arbitral ruling, a reference to an international panel of judges who in 2016 unanimously ruled in favor of the Philippines. China promptly rejected that ruling and continues to defy it.
To secure its interests in the South China Sea (often referred to by Beijing as its”ancestral sea”), to which it almost wholly lays claim on historical grounds, China has been building militarized, man-made islands there.
After last Saturday’s incident, China’s state broadcaster aired an interview with the captain of the Chinese navy’s largest helicopter carrier, who said it was his dream that “one day we are able to fully and independently protect our maritime rights and interests on our own ancestral sea.”
In response to Beijing’s claims that the U.S was “threatening China” by raising the specter of the U.S.-Philippines seven decades-old mutual defense treaty being activated, Malaya went on to deny that Washington was steering Manila.
Only last April, the two nations strengthened their military ties, which prompted a warning from China that the alliance should not threaten its security and territorial interests.
China has long accused the U.S. of meddling in the region, in an attempt to isolate and weaken the hegemon, its only real global rival.
A polling analysis, published last Tuesday by The Center for Strategic and International Studies, revealed that in Southeast Asia, the U.S. currently exceeds China in popularity as well as the ability to project soft power.
In the 10 countries polled, a majority of citizens trusted Washington over Beijing, especially in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam.
