China, Marcos, and Robredo (1)
We’ve had three foreign countries that invaded and occupied our archipelago in the past, namely Spain, the United States, and Japan. Seventy-six years after Japan was driven away from our shores, we face a new invader — China.
While the three earlier invaders occupied our islands, it’s true that China has not done the same. But China’s sin is not any less. China is dismembering a huge chunk of our territory and making it part of its own. This was not done by the past three colonizers because they didn’t annex our islands or waters as part of their country. What China is doing to a big part of our dominion is no different from what it did to Tibet and what it wants to do to Taiwan. It is no different from what Russia is preparing to do in Ukraine.
It’s true that China has not subjugated our people, like what the three earlier invaders did. But China’s sin is not any less. China is driving away our fishermen and military personnel from the territory it is dismembering from our domain. It is preventing our government from exploring natural resources in the area.
It’s true that China has not occupied any of our archipelagic islands, but it is dismembering a humongous 500,000 square kilometers (sq.m.) of our maritime waters. The area being carved out of our country and being made part of China, is almost double the total land area of all our islands (298,000 sq.m.) that were occupied by earlier invaders. It’s an area that holds untold riches. It’s adjacent, and even parts of it belong to the center of marine biodiversity in the world, where the variety of marine species is at its highest on earth. The area has rich fishing grounds, and it potentially contains oil, gas, and precious minerals that could be our country’s lotto ticket to finally become an extremely wealthy country.
It’s also true that the maritime area which China seeks to dismember from our dominion is part of our exclusive economic zone (EEZ). In the language of lawyers, our EEZ is not a formal part of Philippine territory. Under international law, however, it is an area where we enjoy “sovereign rights.” It’s an area where we possess exclusive rights to fish, to exploit all marine resources, and to explore and develop all natural resources including oil, gas, and precious minerals found in the seabed. All these rights are the hallmarks of “ownership.” For all the rights that matter, it is ownership by another name. All these ownership rights are being taken away from us by China.
Standing alone, our country has no chance against China in a military conflict. What we have, by way of advantages, are three aces against China: 1) the international arbitration award that affirmed our sovereign rights in our EEZ; 2) our mutual defense treaty with the US, which obligates the US to come to our aid in case of foreign invasion, and; 3) our natural allies against China consisting of countries which will also stand to suffer either a similar dismemberment of territory or constriction on international commerce.
It’s in our country’s best interest to maintain and assert all these aces when we engage our new invader in either bilateral or multilateral actions. These aces strengthen our leverage in any negotiation or campaign. Expectedly, China wants us to throw away all our aces and face our invader in one-on-one in bilateral “diplomacy.” China wants us to strip to our naked infamy as a small and weak country.
Last week, we heard how the two leading presidential candidates, Leni Robredo and Ferdinand Marcos Jr., would deal with our new invader. If Marcos Jr. becomes our next president, he will set aside all our three aces and face China by our lonesome self in bilateral talks. It’s eerily similar to what China wants. If Robredo wins, in contrast, she will use all our three aces and face China in multilateral negotiations or actions.
Looking back on our history as a conquered people, we classify our past leaders into two—the collaborators and the defiant nationalists. How should we classify our leaders now as we face a new invader?
(To be continued)
