America and the Philippines Should Call China’s Bluff

Marites Dañguilan Vitug

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After months of simmering tensions between China and the Philippines over conflicting territorial claims in the South China Sea, Manila and Beijing have engaged in a series of “candid” discussions on how to manage the disputes. The talks ramped up after a Chinese ship rammed a Philippine coast guard vessel off a contested shoal in August, and come amid a concerted diplomatic, military, and rhetorical push on the part of Philippine President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr., to counter Chinese aggression and to protect the Philippines’ sovereign territorial rights in the South China Sea. Despite his efforts, however, the risk of a crisis with Beijing—one that could pull the United States into a military standoff with China, should Washington be obliged to assist Manila under the terms of their mutual defense treaty—is only growing.

The tussle between the Philippines and China over rammed vessels is just the latest in a series of confrontations that many in both Manila and Washington fear could escalate into a full-blown war with China. Since Chinese President Xi Jinping came to power, in 2012, Beijing has laid claim to vast swaths of the South China Sea—claims that it has begun to assert more forcefully, leading to flare-ups not just with the Philippines but also with other countries in the region, including Malaysia and Vietnam. In June, the Chinese coast guard and the Philippine navy faced off directly for the first time when Chinese forces swarmed Philippine personnel in an attempt to block them from resupplying a key Philippine outpost in contested waters. The outpost, a World War II–era ship called the Sierra Madre, which Manila intentionally grounded a quarter-century ago on the shallow reef known as Second Thomas Shoal, has emerged as an unlikely but critical flash point. Wielding pickaxes, knives, and improvised spears, the Chinese forces ransacked the Philippine boats, looted firearms, and hammered the outboard motors, windshields, and communications equipment. In the melee, a Filipino sailor’s thumb got sliced off by a sharp piece of metal. The skirmish marked a significant escalation from China’s usual maneuvers of shadowing, blocking, and firing water cannons at Philippine ships.