UNSURPRISINGLY, the latest foreign policy direction enunciated by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. — “reset” China relations with more bilateral talks to avoid or address frictions and confrontations — has been blocked by our security establishment, just like several other presidential initiatives relating to China.
After a July encounter in which a baton-wielding China Coast Guard trooper hit a Philippine Navy seaman, causing a 1 1/2-inch head wound, Marcos summoned Chinese Ambassador Jing Quan to an 80-minute meeting and called for resetting relations.
Yet instead of toning down verbal exchanges, Philippine and Chinese sides continued their fiery rhetoric and maritime face-offs, which even extended well beyond the West Philippine Sea (WPS) to Batanes. And this month, rhetoric climbed several notches with Ambassador Jing raising the potential use of force. That prompted lawmakers to demand that the government declare the envoy persona non grata.
Marcos foiled again
Thus, Marcos’ reset has gone the way of his late 2022 order to review our defense ties with the United States, shelved after he let go of his first national security adviser in January 2023 under American pressure.
Also his longtime neutrality stance (“friend to all, enemy to none”); his years of opposition to the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) for US military buildup here; his insistence that EDCA sites be used exclusively for Philippine defense, not Taiwan hostilities; and his early resistance to his camp’s machinations against Vice President Sara Duterte.
In these aborted Marcos initiatives, America’s agenda of building up forces in the Philippines for a potential US-China war over Taiwan has prevailed over the avowed policies of our democratically elected leader.
Now, declaring Ambassador Jing persona non grata could prompt reciprocal actions by Beijing. That could downgrade its embassy and ours, restrict high-level communication between our governments and increase animosity, probably making us nudge even closer to Uncle Sam.
Thankfully, the controversy may ease. The Palace indicated that Ambassador Jing would not be expelled. Rather than summoning him again, Malacañang let Foreign Affairs Secretary Maria Theresa Lazaro meet Jing and take issue with his statements. Notably, embassy officials have also crossed words with Philippine officials.
Even outspoken China critic Rear Adm. Jay Tarriela, Philippine Coast Guard spokesman for the WPS, may be reining in the rhetoric. He suggested that the envoy’s remarks do not reflect Beijing’s express wish to stabilize ties and its “carefully calibrated strategy.”
Let’s talk, not shoot
Well, in fact, in rhetorical jousts with Chinese officials and maritime sorties apparently not coordinated to avoid clashes, our security leadership and agencies may also be not reflecting our people’s preferred China strategy.
An August survey by Millennium Momentum Research found that nearly four-fifths of Filipinos favored diplomacy in addressing Chinese maritime actions. They include 86.9 percent of Metro Manilans and 79 percent of Generation Z respondents.
That preference for diplomacy over the high-seas confrontation and fractious public exchanges favored by our security officials may explain why survey respondents are evenly split in assessing the Marcos government’s handling of China: 45.2 percent deemed it effective, and 45 percent did not.
Millennium also reports that 56.8 percent of respondents believe the Philippines relies too heavily on other nations for protection against China, with just a third thinking otherwise.
Well, guess what: getting us to depend on US protection is part of Washington’s security policy in Asia.
Back in 2012, after China took over Scarborough Shoal, top Washington think tank Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) urged the US to help the Philippines defend itself with maritime surveillance aircraft, anti-ship missiles and air defense systems. These defenses, which should now include drones, would not only deter WPS intruders, but also invaders crossing hundreds of miles, vulnerable to precision projectiles. Indeed, see how even the US Navy fears Houthi rockets in Yemen.
Instead of heeding CSBA, however, Washington forged the 2014 EDCA for US military buildup here with access to our bases. That makes the Philippines a US military platform against China just as the West weaponized Ukraine against Russia.
Then-president Rodrigo Duterte stalled EDCA, but Marcos accelerated it, adding four bases to the five originally requested under the agreement. Plus, US missiles able to hit China would be deployed in secret locations nationwide, as planned by the Honolulu-based Indo-Pacific Command (https://www.csis.org/analysis/us-alliance-philippines). All this with zero warning to nearby communities.
Meanwhile, the Americans have stayed out of our maritime encounters with the Chinese. We are weaponized for US conflicts, but face China alone.
China war scenarios
So, how exactly would China-Philippines hostilities play out? Not as Ambassador Jing warned. Confrontations with China will almost surely not go beyond largely bloodless water cannon, laser blinding, boat bumping and physical beating.
And that’s how Washington and Beijing want it. They avoid direct conflict while serving their political and media ends: for the US, alarm Filipinos to let America escalate forces here; for China, show our neighbors that US alliance would exacerbate, not resolve, maritime disputes.
Actual war between us and China could happen if America uses its forces here to defend Taiwan, South Korea and Japan — Asian allies it values most. Then, like Iran’s destruction of US bases in the Middle East, China would devastate enemy facilities in Asia with thousands of nuclear-capable projectiles, including nearly unstoppable hypersonic missiles. That’s also what a US Air Force Air University analysis warns (https://tinyurl.com/5n75hwnb).
How can we avoid that fate? Consider two Taiwan war scenarios of leading Washington think tanks Center for New American Security (CNAS) and Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
In CNAS war games reported by NBC’s “Meet the Press,” after US fighters from Philippine bases battle Chinese jets, Beijing retaliates against us 10 minutes into the video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYfvm-JLhPQ).
But CSIS’ scenario, cited by London’s Daily Mail paper, has no American military action from our country and therefore no Chinese strikes at us (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E943TsA-bw).
Which brings to mind then-Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s 2024 comment about our US alliance: “Are you sure you want to get into a fight where you will be the battleground?”
