THIS piece becomes a necessary sequel to last week’s column.
Circumstances of the case against China that the Philippines submitted for arbitration at the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) at The Hague clearly manifest deliberate United States machination in its entirety. And yet none of the proceedings that transpired had ever been confirmed as US-instigated in whatever manner. Even the fact that the case was handled for the Philippines by an American lawyer had not gotten much media play, but for passing comments on the enormous amount of attorney’s fees.
The arbitral proceedings were neither ideated, nor initiated, and not even pursued by the Philippines in their entirety. They were underhanded American geopolitical craftsmanship designed for the ultimate maiming of China in the Asia-Pacific region.
Witness how American mouthpieces have had a grand time slamming China for its alleged incursions into what they claim to be the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone. This phenomenon is particularly pronounced in the environs of the Scarborough Shoal and Ayungin Shoal, areas where the China Coast Guard (CCG) and the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) on quite a number of occasions have had near violent skirmishes.
Water cannoning here, vessel ramming there.
In every such incident, credit China for its extreme circumspection. In instances when the PCG appeared a bit too assertive of Philippine sovereign rights, as were apparently upheld by the 2016 arbitral ruling, the CCG exercised amazing restraint. Otherwise, any one of those skirmishes could have already resulted in violent clashes. In instances that the PCG appeared unrelenting in its intent to crash through the CCG’s legal blocking maneuvers, the CCG is ever the one that holds its punches, so to speak.
Since 1999, when the MV Sierra Madre was deliberately run aground on Ayungin Shoal, which is within China’s claimed portion of the South China Sea, Chinese attitude toward Philippine resupply missions in the area was one of tolerance. For over three decades, such tolerance appeared to be the perfect policy, with no antagonism between the CCG and the PCG falling in the way.
And then came the 2016 arbitral ruling. Things changed abruptly. This column recalls an assertion by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. early in his term in this regard: “Sabi nila (China) amin ito. E, atin naman talaga iyun (They — China — say it is theirs. But it is actually ours).”
Marcos’ words certainly encapsulate what the arbitral ruling has done to the Philippines. From a brotherly neighbor enjoying the magnanimity of China, it metamorphosed overnight into a total US underling, mainly pushing its perceived victory at the PCA. It is for this reason that I refuse to engage in legal calisthenics in treating the controversy.
The arbitral ruling is, for all intents and purposes, a US attack on China. That attack is now being fought by the Philippines through all its instrumentalities — the military, with its frequent war exercises with US armed forces inland and at sea; and the Philippine Coast Guard, with its sustained confrontations with the China Coast Guard over the latter’s law enforcement activities in the South China Sea.
On the propaganda front, even high-placed officialdom of the Philippine bureaucracy contributes to the US war effort. Remember that period in the not-so-distant past when senators and House members were blasting China for what they said were Chinese incursions into the US-invented West Philippine Sea — actually South China Sea all throughout history.
The Philippines has been using the arbitral ruling as an effective weapon to war with China.
True, such must be at just an early calibration level, but war nonetheless.
And in war, you don’t rate tactics independent of strategy; they go together in a distinctly symbiotic manner.
Strategy chooses the battles you fight, while tactics win those battles.
In a testimony before the US Senate, notorious CIA operative Raymond Powell, now the most active propagandist of the US objective in the South China Sea, demonstrated how China allegedly resorts to “gray zone tactics” in waging war with the US in the Asia Pacific. He described those tactics as war already, though not quite yet.
Bottom line in his contention is that he knows how to wage war already without being obvious.
Such notion is precisely what the 2016 arbitral ruling is.
It enables the United States to war with China already without yet getting what is supposed to be a correspondingly tit-for-tat reprisal.
So, we note strongly that in all the typical incidents between the CCG and the PCG in the South China Sea, China is always in the defensive.
Isn’t it high time China came to terms with the fact that from its very conception, the arbitral ruling was a war weapon. As such, it can only be fought with methods intrinsic to war.
How is that in practical terms?
As Powell described it, “gray zone tactics” are war already but not quite yet.
Yet repeated time and again and each time winning, the overall effort contributes to the attainment of the strategic objective.
As always, strategy defines the objective of war; tactics determine the battles to be won.
The strategy of the United States in the Asia Pacific had been elaborated by former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in an article, “America’s Pacific Century,” published by the Foreign Policy website back in 2011. She wrote, “The future of politics will not be decided in Iraq or Afghanistan but in Asia. And the United States will be right at the center of the action.”
Note the date of that writing, one year before the Scarborough Shoal standoff that ultimately precipitated the filing by the Philippines of the arbitral case against China at the Hague.
Once the arbitration was won by the Philippines, Raymond Powell, who heads Sealight, the CIA think tank based at Stanford University, had a heyday winning battle after battle in the US’ “gray zone” war against China.
How does China combat those tactics?
As things indicate, through sheer propaganda.
Yes, maybe, propaganda has its utility in war. This was particularly highlighted in the case of Joseph Goebbels, the wartime Nazi Reich’s minister of public enlightenment and propaganda. He controlled all newspapers, radio and art in Germany.
Among the propaganda theories he popularized was The Big Lie, which states: “Tell massive, unbelievable lies rather than small, partial truths. People are more likely to fall for a gigantic falsehood than a slight misstatement.”
In the current brouhaha on the impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte, note how this theory applies.
At any rate, this has been largely the role bloated by Powell in his handling of the PCA ruling affair: “gigantic falsehood.”
Lies after lies after lies.
For days on end without let-up.
And this should be the final criteria for China to engage the 2016 arbitral ruling.
Sad to say, China has been very truthful in elaborating on the issues involved in the controversy — actually digressing from war necessities of propaganda.
And void of war, against the United States, China cannot but lose.
On the 2016 arbitral ruling, America has been doing the fight on the right level.
China just has to do likewise.
