Laser incident points to risk of clash between China and US treaty ally
Joel Gehrke
Video Embed
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos condemned the “increasing frequency and intensity” of China‘s maritime aggression following a laser incident that underscores the security fears driving a new alignment of U.S. and allied democracies in the Indo-Pacific.
“The consistent, petty acts of coercion are the norm now, despite whatever efforts at the political level might have been underway to reset relations between the Philippines and China,” Center for Strategic and International Studies senior Gregory Poling said. “This is just daily life in the South China Sea — constant, low-level risk of violence and escalation.”
Those simmering tensions flared into public view in recent days as Philippine officials published footage that appears to show a Chinese vessel directing a laser at a Philippine vessel that was delivering supplies to a small military outpost in the Spratly Islands. That standoff arises from China’s claim to sovereignty over most of the South China Sea, an assertion that raises the specter of a clash between Beijing and Manila that could trigger U.S. obligations to defend the Philippines from an “armed attack” under a long-standing mutual defense treaty.
“The recent use by China’s coast guard of lasers that temporarily blinded [Philippine] coast guard personnel constitutes an armed attack on a Philippine public vessel,” retired Philippine Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio said this week. “Thus, the laser weapon, even if it causes only temporary blindness, is still a weapon or an arm that can be used in an attack that qualifies the attack as an armed attack under the Mutual Defense Treaty.”
CHINA COMMITTEE TO HOLD FIRST PUBLIC HEARING ON COMMUNIST THREAT BY MONTH’S END
A senior Chinese diplomat signaled their plan to disregard the Philippine rebukes, despite the defense pledge with the United States. “At present, the relevant waters are calm overall,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said Tuesday. “The U.S. invokes its Mutual Defense Treaty with the Philippines at every turn in an attempt to intimidate China, but it will not weaken our resolve and will to safeguard China’s legitimate and lawful rights and interests.”
That comment was a retort to Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s team, which warned China that the defense treaty applies to coast guard vessels as well as other military assets.
“The PRC’s conduct was provocative and unsafe, resulting in the temporary blindness of the crew members of the BRP Malapascua and interfering with the Philippines’ lawful operations in and around Second Thomas Shoal,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said Monday evening. “The United States … reaffirms an armed attack on Philippine armed forces, public vessels, or aircraft, including those of the Coast Guard in the South China Sea, would invoke U.S. mutual defense commitments under Article IV of the 1951 U.S. Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty.”
Chinese officials likely will continue trying to pressure the Philippines to acquiesce to their territorial claims, using tactics that Beijing will want to stop short of provoking a direct confrontation with the United States, according to another American analyst.
“The likelihood of escalation in the South China Sea remains pretty low between the U.S. and China, but that doesn’t mean that it’s a low between, say, the Philippines and China, or Vietnam and China,” American Enterprise senior fellow Zack Cooper said. “Beijing has shown that it’s perfectly willing to try and push around smaller players in the South China Sea, and that it will probably continue to do that, even if it risks angering those governments.”
That aggressive approach is already stirring Marcos, the Philippine president, to coordinate with other countries in order to secure “safe passage through the South China Sea,” where China has even deployed military assets. The new Philippine president’s policy contrasts markedly with the posture adopted by his predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, who tried to mitigate pressure from China by declaring a “separation” from the U.S. That diplomatic tactic foreshadowed multiple difficulties in the implementation of military agreements between the U.S. and the Philippines, but Marcos agreed to expand U.S. military access to the Philippines in a milestone deal unveiled earlier this month.
“We have to also respond to the geopolitical situation that we can see is changing around us,” Marcos told Nikkei Asia in an interview published this week. “We do not want to be provocative, but … we feel that it will help in making sure that there is safe passage in the South China Sea and, furthermore, that we are doing all we can to protect our maritime territory.”
Marcos has adopted a more coordinated approach not only with the U.S. but other democratic powers in the Indo-Pacific, such as Japan.
“Japan has provided a lot of materials for us in the Philippines to be able to safeguard our territorial waters — vessels, equipment, and communications,” Marcos said in the interview. “And we have been holding joint exercises before. Perhaps because … shall we say, the temperature in the region has slowly ratcheted up, we have to also, as a response, be more judicious in making sure that we are defending properly our sovereign territory.”
That partnership points not only to a new posture in the Philippines but also to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s decision to play a more active role in contributing to security in the Indo-Pacific. Tokyo’s initiatives attest to a growing “web of these overlapping connections” between democracies in the region that previously have focused on their direct alliance with the U.S. rather than partnerships with each other, according to Poling.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“China’s preferred method of control region is not a high-end conflict with the [U.S. Navy’s] Seventh Fleet; it’s low-level coercion and bullying and threats,” the CSIS analyst said. “And so, greater coordination between and among allies … all of this cooperation is good and for the U.S., and it helps take some of the burden.”