Fight for this cause

It’s beyond doubt that China is Asia’s greatest economy—and its biggest bully.

The “respect” shown toward China by other Asian claimants to the Spratly Islands, which include our municipality of Kalayaan, is mainly a function of business. China is, after all, one of their top trading partners.

And for export-oriented economies like Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam, it really will be bad business to jeopardize their business dealings with China without sufficient cause. This “respect” shown by four of the six Spratly claimants manifests itself in their resounding silence vis-à-vis China’s bullying, in contrast to the Philippines’ very loud defiance.

It’s also probably caused by their sound military calculation that China, despite its loud mouth and its “powerful” navy and air force, will be unable to project military power for any meaningful period of time in the Spratlys without facing the prospect of a ruinous naval battle against a coalition of other claimants abetted by the United States.

China’s shaky geopolitical, economic and naval situation today prevents it from imposing its will on the Philippines and the four other Spratly claimants by military means.

When dealing from overwhelming military strength, China has shown no compunction in pushing its weight around. It did so in March 1988 against Vietnam during the Johnson South Reef skirmish and in 1995 when it quickly seized Mischief Reef from the Philippines.

Why is China, which is more militarily powerful today, not pushing its weight around? Why has no battle fleet consisting of missile-armed destroyers, frigates and submarines from the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) sallied toward the Spratlys to enforce its “Nine-Dash Claim”?

It’s because China’s political leadership remains sufficiently pragmatic to cut its coat according to its cloth. Militarily, that cloth is very short indeed.

Loss of face

Kalayaan is located some 1,000 nautical miles from the city of Zhanjiang in Guangdong province, home of the PLAN South Sea Fleet. This fleet of some 40 destroyers, frigates and diesel-electric submarines will be our likely foe in the West Philippine Sea.

It will take a PLAN battle fleet about two days traveling at 20 knots to reach Kalayaan from Zhanjiang. But it will take weeks to mass and provision these ships for war—events that the United States will certainly discover using its sophisticated reconnaissance assets.

Granting China’s disregard of diplomatic protests from the Philippines, the United States and the rest of the world at its naval massing, the time it will have lost in political maneuvering will give other claimants the time to prepare for the worst.

A naval battle will not be the goal of this show of force by the Philippines and its allied claimants. The presence of a united battle front and the will to fight should be enough to deter PLAN from opening a naval battle.

After all, only an overwhelming PLAN naval victory will suffice. Anything less will amount to a tremendous loss of face for China, both at home and abroad. The damage to its economy will be incalculable.

A long naval battle or, worse, a naval defeat, may lead to a train of events that can hasten the end of the communist dictatorship in China. It will certainly lead to a debilitating leadership purge and widespread political instability of which Tibetan and Chinese-Muslim separatists will likely take advantage.

Mexican standoff

The irony of the situation is that China will be unable to send a massive naval force to seize targets in the Spratlys without antagonizing the United States. Instead, it will be compelled to deploy a much smaller force, one capable of beating us but not large enough to trigger a reprisal from the US Navy.

What we have, therefore, is a Mexican standoff.

In a three-sided Mexican standoff, it is the side that shoots first that loses. In a standoff involving a coalition of claimants, the United States and China, it will be unwise for China to fire first.

If China does shoot at us first with the US Navy within aircraft striking range, will America stay out of the fight and risk losing its credibility as the Superpower? And if China decides to fire at the mighty US Navy first, it will give new meaning to the act of suicide.

China does not have a single operational aircraft carrier. The Americans have 10 operational Nimitz-class supercarriers.

China will never allow us to shoot first because that will increase our chances of victory. Therefore, it will have more to lose than gain if it escalates the shouting match to anything beyond raising the decibel level.

It is left to continue its strategy of creeping encroachment that has not paid dividends since 1995. It might seize a few islets to convince itself of the value of this strategy, but as long as no claimant plants its flag on any disputed islet, as Vietnam did in 1988, there will be no war over Kalayaan.

The Philippines has nothing to lose from escalating the current word war. But China will not be provoked because it has appraised the fatal consequences of military action to its fragile economic recovery, and its growing political instability fueled by a massive income gap between the rich and the rest.

Rallying world opinion

By continuing to raise its voice against China’s bullying, the Philippines will be playing its best card.

We must keep China’s bullying on the front burner of world opinion and the international mass media. Like an evil vampire, China will strike only when it thinks the world is not watching. But if continuously exposed to the glare of international scrutiny, it may be forced to back off and lurk in the darkness.

Filipino bloggers, Netizens, e-mailers, YouTube-ers, hackers, social media fans, texters, Tweeters and the other tech-savvy among us can help keep China at bay by opening an international cyber-guerrilla front aimed at informing the 10 million overseas Filipinos and the rest of the world about the Philippines’ righteous cause that has been upheld by the United Nations.

The aim? To rally the world to our cause. And President Benigno  Aquino III is to be commended for taking the course of valor. We must support him.

The Age of the Internet has given ordinary Filipinos the easy means of proving their patriotism. Just by texting or e-mailing or Facebook-ing, each one of us can tell dozens—hundreds!—of other people worldwide that the Philippines is in the right in this Mexican standoff.

We have a great advantage over the Chinese in this cyberfight: We speak and write English better than they do. And we do text and make friends a lot.

Taking the fight to cyberspace will help diminish the prospect of a war in the real world by forcing China to keep denying it has aggressive intentions. And this campaign may yet compel it to keep proving to the world that it will not start a war over the Spratlys.

It’s a farfetched and fantastic assumption, but stranger political events have occurred. Remember the obscure fruit vendor from Tunisia who sparked the Arab Spring?

A regular contributor to the Inquirer, Art Villasanta has written about national defense issues and wars involving the Philippines. He is the Philippines’ Korean War historian with his Korean War website at www.peftok.blogspot.com.