By Adolfo Quizon Paglinawan

 

Part 14: Where Brawner sees War, China sees Diplomacy   

“Political instability and economic hardship.”

These two factors characterized the situation in China when it established  diplomatic relations with the Philippines in 1975. At that time the Cultural Revolution still cast a long shadow since 1966, leading to widespread disruption of work units and the movement of people, often from urban to rural areas and resulting in shortages of skilled labor and a decline in productivity.

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Such watershed moment between the two countries , occurred four years after when the United Nations recognized the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) in 1971 as the only legitimate government of a “One China.”

Prior Philippine administrations before Ferdinand Marcos, and even Marcos himself during his first term that started in 1965, had considered the PRC as a security threat, due to its financial and military support of homegrown communist rebels.

But in his 1969 State of the Nation Address, President Marcos announced a paradigm shift:

“We, in Asia must strive toward a modus vivendi with Red China. I reiterate this need, which is becoming more urgent each day. Before long, Communist China will have increased its striking power a thousand fold with a sophisticated delivery system for its nuclear weapons. We must prepare for that day. We must prepare to coexist peaceably with Communist China.”

Two years after that speech, Marcos decided to create a defense buffer on the western side of the Philippines outlying our island of  Palawan, by occupying some features in the South China Sea in 1971.

Finally in June 1975, the Philippine President visited PRC and signed a Joint Communiqué normalizing relations and recognizing “the Government of the People’s Republic of China as the sole legal government of China,” and  fully understanding and respecting “the position of the Chinese Government that there is but one China and that Taiwan is an integral part of Chinese territory,” and deciding “to remove all its official representations from Taiwan within one month from the date of signature of this communique.”

In turn, Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai committed that China would not intervene in the internal affairs of the Philippines nor seek to impose its policies in Asia, a move that isolated the local communist movement that China had earlier financially and militarily supported.

Today, fifty years after the signing of that communique, it is opportune to revisit the commitments we entered with China in the light of disagreements that has overpowered bilateral harmony.

“The two Governments recognize and agree to respect each other’s territorial integrity…(and) agree to settle all disputes by peaceful means…

“The two Governments agree that all foreign aggression and subversion and all attempts by any country to control any other country or to interfere in its internal affairs are to be condemned. They are opposed to any attempt by any country or group of countries to establish hegemony or create spheres of influence in any part of the world.”

I feel it is significant to highlight these terms in the light of the irresponsible behavior of Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro when confronted regarding the US use of proxies in Asia at the British-organized Shangri-La Dialogue on global security issues in Singapore last June 3. The query referenced American ambitions to maintain its hegemony in the Indo-Pacific, just as it is doing in Eastern Europe, with Ukraine as its proxy.

But instead of answering, Teodoro called out “propaganda spiels disguised as questions,” attacking the Chinese questioner claiming he have no right to ask such questions as China has a “trust deficit” in the South China Sea, referencing China’s building of structures on Mischief Reef in 1994.

In this regard, Ambassador Rigoberto Tiglao exposed Teodoro’s ignorance and cited a masteral thesis submitted in 1998 at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California entitled “Dragon in the Shadows: Calculating China’s Advances in the South China.” authored by one Navy Lt. Michael Willilam Studeman, who would go up the ranks to become rear admiral, with his last post before retiring in July 2023 as director of the Office of Naval Intelligence.

Studeman narrates that it was the Fidel Ramos government that provoked the Chinese to occupy and build structures at Mischief Reef, that rather than China, it was the Philippines which first had, to use Teodoro’s term, a “trust deficit.”

“China’s occupation of Mischief Reef was not a bolt from the blue. It was preceded by a logical chain of events beginning with a fallout with the Philippines over exploration in the northeast region of the Spratlys,” the American added.”

This statement is correct. Mischief Reef has never been part of the Kalayaan Island Group that was legislated by Marcos under Presidential Decree 1596. Theretofore, any expansion can only be with the cooperation of the original claimant – China.

Studeman continues, “After joint development talks between China and the Philippines over gas-rich Reed Bank broke down in early 1994, Manila unilaterally decided in May to grant a six-month oil exploration permit to an American oil company. southwest of Reed Bank. Manila hoped the contract would remain a secret, but news of the collaboration soon leaked.

“(With) Manila’s untrustworthiness proved, China decided to advance eastward to a perch (@Mischief Reef) that allowed China better surveillance coverage of possible Philippine-sponsored oil exploration activity.” China was forced to show it was not sleeping on its rights.”

In response to China’s occupation of Mischief Reef, President Joseph Estrada deliberately grounded the BRP Sierra Madre on Ayungin Shoal (Second Thomas Shoal) in 1999 by the Philippine government as a way to establish a naval presence and assert its claim to the area. (According to the 2016 Arbitral Award, the shoal is not subject to sovereignty claim because it is a low-tide elevation or LTE. No application of exclusive economic zone is also possible because the presence of BRP Sierra Madre under Paragraph 1161: “represents a “quintessentially military situation.”

As a result of escalation of hostilities in the South China Sea at the turn of the century, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and China began a dialog seeking to establish basic principles and common norms for handling issues, including freedom of navigation and overflight, peaceful settlement of disputes, and self-restraint in the conduct of activities. 

China agreed to sign the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) at Phnom Penh, Cambodia in 2002. 

The DOC is primarily a political declaration, meaning its enforcement relies on the good faith of the signatories and their willingness to uphold the commitments made.The DOC is not enforced by any single authority, but rather through mechanisms established by ASEAN and China. However, lets face it, it is only China who has the wherewithal to police 3.5 million square kilometers.

On March 2005 during the term of Gloria Arroyo, representatives from national oil companies of China, the Philippines and Vietnam signed a Tripartite Agreement for Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking in the South China Sea. (The Supreme Court ruled in January 2023, that the Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking, which expired in 2008, was unconstitutional.)

Under Benigno Aquino III, we lost Scarborough Shoal after a standoff that occurred after a Philippine Navy ship Gregorio de Pilar apprehended eight Chinese fishing boats.

In retaliation, the late Albert del Rosario, then secretary of foreign affairs, complicated the China-Philippine situation by registering an arbitration complaint under UNCLOS.  As China had earlier manifested in a “declaration” duly submitted to the UN Secretary-General, that its internal laws do not allow it to participate in any compulsory conflict-resolution involving third parties, preferring instead bilateral negotiations, China did not participate.

This is perhaps what is lacking in the education of Philippine diplomats who promotes the legitimacy of the 2016 Arbitral Award.

It is a fundamental principle that international relations are built on the consent of sovereign states. This means that states are generally not bound by international obligations unless they have explicitly agreed to them, through treaties, customary international law, or other forms of consent, or having agreed to those forms, declare and specify the extent to which they agree.

This why in international law, while it obliges signatories to harmonize their internal laws to treaties, it is also a common practice to allow states having difficulty doing so, to declare the areas of irreconcilable differences upon signing, upon ratification and sometime thereafter.

This is why the 2016 Arbitral Award may be gospel to the Philippines, but it is non-binding when it comes to China. What we are seeing today is that we have been entrapped inside many legal positions that would have been better left flexible had we instead resorted to diplomacy and talked to China bilaterally.

            Confronting the Congressional Tricom last June 5, I was ask where my expertise was coming from? “Are you a lawyer, Mr. Paglinawan”, the chairman asked. “No sir, I replied I worked as a diplomat for seven years in our embassy in Washington DC.”

Lawyers and diplomats share some common ground, especially in their use of negotiation and advocacy, but their primary functions and areas of expertise differ significantly. Lawyers are primarily focused on legal matters within a specific jurisdiction, while diplomats work on a broader stage to represent their nation’s interests in international affairs, promoting peace and cooperation.

In short, this is where lawyers often fail in international law, not conscious that international law is based on international relations. Diplomats, on the other hand, look for solutions even beyond legal structures.  

President Rodrigo Duterte has always been a lawyer, but he understands diplomacy.

Under his independent foreign policy, all issues with China were subjected to continuing bilateral consultative mechanisms, instead of endless legal disputations. His governance prevented the escalation of conflicts in the disputed features of the SCS, and brought in tremendous economic benefits – infrastructure projects, hyped exports, unprecedented tourist inflow, foreign direct investment, soft loans and heightened direct people-to-people and business-to-business engagements.

Topping the list was an offer from China to mine oil and gas at the expense, but allotting 60% of the proceeds to the Philippines. By the way this was sabotaged by Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr., who argued that it would violate our Constitution. Locsin was a lawyer. Worse, he fashioned himself as British-American boy.

If such were thrown to me as a former diplomat, I would have immediately referenced to the Sea Treaty among the Timor Leste, Australia and Indonesian, who despite their domestic legal limitations, levelled-up the issue to an international convention. Had Locsin done so, we would be bathing in black gold by today already without having spent a nickel for the project.

The state visit of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. in Beijing on January 2023 has resulted in investment pledges of USD22.8 billion from Chinese companies, in addition to whatever assistance package filling up whatever could not be delivered under Duterte because of the Covid pandemic.

But after Marcos Jr signed four additional sites to the existing five under our Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement with the United States on February 2023, Philippine foreign policy shifted to the United States rules-based order.

The box he got into was worse, not only did he listened only to lawyers, but lawyers who engaged in the weaponization of law onto warfare, or lawfare to promote their narrow interests, and not those of the people.

Pulse Asia made consistent surveys that up to 72% of our people did not only say “controlling inflation” is the top priority, all the succeeding priorities were economic in nature. 

Marcos got sidetracked into geopolitics in the South China Seas and hostaged by lobbyists for the military-industrial complex of the United States.

Read: https://asiancenturyph.com/2025/05/08/trinidad-leaks-confirm-us-rules-based-order-is-our-official-foreign-policy/

Chinese embassy officials in Manila said the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Office of the President stopped answering their calls intended to continue bilateral consultative mechanism that will pave the way for Xi Jinping’s commitment to see light.

President Marcos Jr then attempted to abandon the resupply missions to our occupied “islands” outposts in the South China Seas, that has been routine since President Estrada. This resulted into our forays being challenged by the Chinese Coast Guard. The situation only returned to normal in mid-2004 when Marcos himself returned to the usual protocol.

But in November 2024, he signed into law the Maritime Zones Act and an accompanying Archipelagic Act that “created” maritime zones in contradiction of the UN Convention of Law of the Sea and the 2016 Arbitral Award that it also codified in the same law, lumped  together with past laws. The result is a conundrumical whole.

In China, they call that “chopsuey!”

Just to cite an example. In the enforcement of this law by the Philippines, rounds of Chinese Coast Guard challenges have resumed because the Philippine Coast Guard, the Philippine Navy and vessels of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources have been patrolling what the law calls our exclusive economic zones.

Under UNCLOS, no country has jurisdiction over EEZs because the surface of the water thereat and the aerospace above it are international space for freedom of navigation and flight respectively. The Convention rules those are high seas.

In fact what is expressly provided in its Article 89 is – “No State may validly purport to subject any part of the high seas to its sovereignty”

Curiously, Philippine government ships have made it habit of patrolling 18 nautical miles close to the territorial sea of another claimant country while being 78 nautical miles away from our own territorial sea.

This is not coincidental, nor just a mistake. This indicates that we are poking the dragon.

The Philippines continue violating UNCLOS by conducting military exercises in waters west of Northern Luzon with the United States, Japan, Australia. We have even invited European countries to join. Patroling and military exercises are an abuse of the principle of innocent passage, explicit in Article 19 of the convention.

That they are conducted with non-regional state, is even ominous.

Philippine foreign policy must find itself back to the road to peace.

We hope to correct all these stupid laws in the forthcoming 20^th  Congress in order to avoid a self-inflicted Armageddon. Isn’t it obvious that we have become pawns to the hegemonic ambitions of the US in the Indo-Pacific?

What happened after we passed the two laws that will allow the US an fictitious expressway called west Philippine sea, Pete Hegseth came over to make the mouths of our local warmongers water for 20 surplus fourth generation F-16 fighter jets at $279 million each. The fifth generation F-35 package cost only P$106 million.

The expressway suddenly became a toll road infested with highway robbers.

Conclusion

            Summing it up, I borrow the perspective of a colleague here at Asian Century Philippines Institute, Ms. Anna Malindog Uy.

            “This golden anniversary is not just a ceremonial marker. It is a moment of reflection and renewal. It calls on both nations to re-anchor their relations on principles of mutual trust and respect, peaceful coexistence, and dialogue.

“Strategic differences are real, but they must not overshadow the larger horizon of win-win cooperation. Neighbors do not always agree, but they must learn to live, grow, agree to disagree sometimes and prosper together.”

It is already a given that President Marcos Jr has made a catastrophic decision to embargo China in his first three years of tenure. He has not only squandered the vision of his own father Ferdinand Sr. and the precedent goodwill of his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte, about China.

He has ignored the most urgent national concern of our people – economic prosperity with China. His experimental foreign policy in his west Philippine sea is only supported by 5% of the population according to Pulse Asia.

As he departed from benefits constructive engagement with China can achieve in trade, technology, agriculture, digital technology, renewable energy, direct investments, infrastructure and tourism.

China is no longer the China of 1975 wallowing in political instability and economic hardship. Thirty years hence, it has liberated 800 million of its people from poverty.  Today after fifty years, it has the biggest economy in the world, overtaking erstwhile sole superpower the United States.

What China is only asking in return is a stable, cooperative and economically vibrant Philippines.

Ms. Malindog-Uy says “This is the logic of interdependence and regional peace. The task now is to ensure that diplomacy prevails over discord and that disagreements are managed without undermining broader ties.

“On this golden anniversary, may both Manila and Beijing choose the path of wisdom over reaction, partnership over provocation, and long-term friendship over short-term friction.”

Wisdom has always been available. Will Marcos pick it up now that political instability and economic hardship have shown up in our shores?

To be continued.

   

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