Scarborough: turning crisis into opportunity

Taiwan has now joined the fray at Scarborough. It is bad news when yet another government lays claim to what we hold as ours, even worse when that government is one that, by fiction of law, we pretend does not even exist. Let’s use the standoff to highlight the truly global character not just of the tussle over Scarborough but of the larger territorial issues in the West Philippine Sea. Taiwan’s intrusion shows that Scarborough is not a purely bilateral dispute as China insists. It should drive the Chinese up the law as they insist that it’s really still bilateral since, technically speaking, Taiwan is part of China.

Beijing may see the Philippines as mere collateral damage in its bid to assert its primacy in Asia against the United States. We can either allow ourselves to be pushed precisely into the role of the US proxy here, or we can use the conflict to enable us to play off other countries’ insecurities to our advantage and in the end act as a genuinely sovereign nation.

First, we should draw attention to the fact that both Beijing and Taipei draw the same “dotted-U” line enclosing the entire South China Sea. The dotted-U was in fact originated by the Kuomintang in a succession of issuances between 1930 and 1947 when it still ruled the mainland. The dotted-U (minus a two-dotted line portion) was merely adopted by the People’s Republic in 1949 when the communists took over and pushed out the Kuomintang across the channel into the island of Taiwan.

This is nothing surprising since, after all, both states cite the same historical claims as the basis of their title. Indeed Taipei remained neutral during the China-Vietnam and China-Philippine clashes in the Spratlys, and even expressed subtle support for Beijing. In the mid-1990s, there were signs of increasing cross-straits collaboration in oil exploration.

Now that Taipei insinuates itself into the Scarborough debate, we should remind Taipei that if it forms a united front with Beijing on this issue, it is doomed to play junior partner, the perpetual “Mini-Me” to Beijing’s Dr. Evil. Taipei already occupies Itu Aba, the largest of the islands in the Spratlys archipelago. What purpose does it serve them to parrot Beijing’s already dubious claims over Scarborough (as I argued in last week’s column “Framing the Scarborough debate”)?

Second, we should call attention to the fact that neither state has laid out the exact coordinates of the dotted-U line. Moreover, what precisely does the dotted-U mean? Does it define ownership merely over the enclosed islands but not over the waters? Or does it lay claim over both the islands and waters?

In 1992, China passed a law demarcating its territorial sea by drawing straight baselines from the Mainland to “its offshore islands, Taiwan and … Nansha Islands [Spratlys] and other islands that belong to [China].” Yes, the dotted-U includes both the islands and the waters, and those waters belong to the “territorial sea” over which it has sovereignty.

However, China has subsequently ratified the Law of the Sea Convention, which said that “straight baselines must not depart to any appreciable extent from the general direction of the coast.” In other words, it should follow the contours (jargon calls them “indentations” and “sinuosities”) of the coast. By that rule, the baseline should track the Chinese coast from the boundary with North Korea in the north to the boundary with Vietnam in the south. It can’t suddenly detour away from Hong Kong all the way to Luzon.

(Again, this should serve as a reminder to Filipinos. We love to cite our own domestic laws against China. Our laws don’t bind China, in much the same way that China’s laws don’t bind us.)

Third, if Taiwan pushes its claim over Scarborough, we will be forced to deal with its government despite the fact that we have no diplomatic relations. Our own country sealed its One-China Policy under the 1975 Joint Communiqué signed by Ferdinand Marcos and Chou En Lai. The Philippines has scrupulously respected the One-China Policy. Indeed you will recall Taiwan’s righteous indignation during the 2010 post-Christmas raid on Internet scammers victimizing citizens at the Mainland. Over Taipei’s protests, we deported the arrested Taiwanese nationals to Beijing.

Ironically then, if the Philippines is forced to deal with Taipei now, Beijing’s saber-rattling will have actually forced the hand of the Philippines to do precisely what the One-China Policy seeks to avoid, that is, direct diplomatic engagement with Taipei.

Finally, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) must not be merely reactive and defensive vis-à-vis Chinese feistiness. It must be proactive in scouting for bargaining chips against China, issues where China will be on the defensive. Already, the Asean, working hand in hand with the United States, has weaned away China’s erstwhile strongest ally in the region, Burma (Myanmar), invoking the loftiest rhetoric of human rights.

Both the Asean and the United States should next aim at China’s foreign policy bête noire in Asia, Tibetan independence, but do so most earnestly to protect human rights and uphold self-determination. It can be as slow, painstaking and gentle as the wooing of Burma, and can start off with increased assistance and visibility for refugees or informal meetings with dignitaries from Tibet’s government-in-exile. It is a roundabout way for us to send a broader message to China: that might does not make right, that there’s such a thing as international laws and norms, and that even the most brazen of power-trippers, on the verge of graduating from cheap thuggery to empire, will have to “anoint power with piety.”

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