Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s administration opened a new coast guard outpost station in the South China Sea in a bid to fortify Manila's position in a high-stakes territorial dispute with China.
“Its ability to collect real-time data, along with its coastal radars that can track the presence of vessels near the island, will certainly have an impact on the behavior of our Chinese neighbor,” Philippine national security adviser Eduardo Ano said Friday. “This facility is poised to be a game-changer in promoting transparency and influencing [China's] behavior to abide by international laws and support the rules-based order.”
GEORGE SANTOS EXPELLED FROM HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Ano oversaw the opening of the coast guard station in the wake of a series of high-profile confrontations between Philippine and Chinese vessels in the South China Sea, which Beijing has claimed as its sovereign territory in defiance of the claims of several other states whose shores touch those waters. Philippine officials have hardened their opposition to China’s claims, but the communist regime likewise has signaled that it will use the coast guard to be even more assertive in a bid to crowd out the smaller claimants.
“The coast guard must effectively safeguard our rights, enforce our laws, and resolutely defend our territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests,” Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping told coast guard officials this week in remarks quoted Friday by state media. “It is necessary to pragmatically carry out foreign exchanges and cooperation in maritime law enforcement and actively participate in international and regional maritime governance.”
Yet cooperation has been hard to find due to Beijing’s ongoing attempt to seize control of one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, a power play with far-reaching ramifications for China’s economic and military clout in the region. Chinese coast guard vessels collided in October with Philippine vessels attempting to deliver supplies to different Philippine military outposts in the disputed region, an incident caught on camera by Philippine officials. In February, Philippine coast guard officials released a photograph to support their allegation that a Chinese coast guard vessel had used a laser to blind Philippine coast guard personnel.
“Marcos is taking an approach of what they're calling radical transparency [to say] ‘this is what China's doing to harass Philippine coast guard and sailors and fishermen,’” Brian Harding, the senior expert for Southeast Asia at the U.S. Institute of Peace, told the Washington Examiner. “And I think the Philippine national security agencies are rightly proud of how they've shifted the strategic messaging on this topic.”
Ano underscored that strategy during his stop at Pag-asa Island, home of the new coast guard station.
“Actually, those are no longer gray-zone tactics; it's pure bullying, and it's purely illegal,” he said. “That’s no longer acceptable under international law.”
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Those incidents prompted Biden’s administration to remind Beijing of the mutual defense treaty between the United States and the Philippines, soon backed by a joint patrol of U.S. and Philippine naval forces. And the opening of the Pag-asa Island station coincided with a first-ever round of “joint service” talks between military officials from Australia, Japan, the Philippines, and the U.S. The discussions were focused “on upholding Rules-Based International Order,” the Philippines's armed forces wrote on social media.
“The Philippines is pursuing its national interests and protecting its sovereignty in a multifaceted and, under this Marcos administration, highly disciplined way,” Harding said. “They've been very aggressive with this campaign of radical transparency about what China's doing in the information space, and they're trying to do what they can in terms of the military balance.”