Beyond the circus

As thousands of poseurs, practical jokers and politicians (we admit it is sometimes difficult to distinguish one from the other) prepared last week to file their certificates of candidacy to qualify for the May elections, China started operating two lighthouses on two reefs in the Spratlys claimed by the Philippines. This worrying development is a reminder of what is truly at stake in the 2016 vote.

As in every election, the fate and future of the nation are at issue: how to reduce the number of the poor, how to increase the chances of peace in troubled areas, how to bring the corrupt to account, how to improve the quality of life. In the last few years, an important question has been added to the mix that voters must learn to ask: how to defend Philippine sovereignty against Chinese over-assertiveness in the West Philippine Sea, at a time when China, despite recent crises, remains on track to become a true global superpower.

We may laugh at the antics of aspiring candidates, or despair at the maneuverings of seasoned politicos (the apparent miscommunication, or at least the lack of coordination, between the political camps of Senators Miriam Defensor Santiago and Ferdinand Marcos Jr. yesterday was only the latest but not the last instance), but we should realize that overly focusing on the political circus obscures the importance of our election choices.

Last Friday, China completed work on the lighthouses on Calderon Reef and Mabini Reef, part of its ambitious plan to lay claim to disputed territories in the Spratlys through a land reclamation program. (Beijing is also claiming the Paracels as well as the Philippines’ own Bajo de Masinloc.) The Chinese government has justified its aggressive action as an initiative in making the area safer for international navigation, and the official news release last Friday, quoting foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying, was no different. Beijing said the “civil facilities” answer a shortage in navigational equipment that had “immensely hindered the navigational safety and economic and social development” in the area.

But what Beijing giveth with the language of cooperation, it taketh with the unmistakable language of intimidation. China, the spokesperson also said, would “continue to build other civil facilities on occupied island reefs in the Nansha Islands,” referring to the Chinese name for the Spratlys.

The announcement came just days after the United States—China’s only rival for superpowerdom—said it was considering sending its warships through the disputed areas in the coming weeks, and only a couple of weeks after Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit to America. While the controversial reclamation work began several months ago, and the completion was only a matter of time, the ceremony itself and its announcement remain auspicious.

The state visit had calmed tense Chinese-American relations; the inauguration of the lighthouses, and the imminent US Navy deployment, can only test the new resolve of the Chinese and American leaders. But the lighthouses will also add to tensions in the region. The Chinese reclamation project has met with a resounding backlash in the Asia-Pacific, and news of the completion ceremony can only add to the concerns of China’s nervous neighbors. (Vietnam, which also claims parts of the Spratlys, slammed the construction of the Chinese lighthouses. Its Foreign Ministry spokesperson said the building “seriously violates Vietnam’s sovereignty … [and] complicates the situation and escalates tensions.”)

It will also deepen Filipino doubts about the Chinese government’s sincerity and its commitment to the China-Asean project of a code of conduct to govern competing maritime and territorial claims.

That is, if we are finally able to redirect our collective attention from the coupling and uncoupling of political alliances and the consuming grotesquerie of the election circus. The unilateral Chinese action should make us ask ourselves: What are we prepared to do to contain the

Chinese bully?