Philippines flexes middle power clout in China sea dispute

SOUTH CHINA SEA – The Philippines joined Australia and Canada in a joint cooperative sail this week near a disputed shoal in the South China Sea that has been under Chinese control for over a decade.

The drills marked a show of force by rising middle-power countries, which are increasingly willing to challenge Chinese power at sea in the Pacific.

The two-day activities that culminated on Wednesday (September 3) were led by the Philippine Navy’s BRP Jose Rizal (FF150) and backed by the Australian ship HMAS Brisbane and Canada’s HMCS Ville de Quebec, which all took formation as they sailed near the contested Scarborough Shoal.

Just 232 kilometers (125 nautical miles) west of the Philippines’ main island of Luzon, the shoal has been under China’s control since 2012 after a monthslong standoff with Philippine vessels.

Beijing has ignored an international arbitral court’s ruling in Manila’s favor against China’s wide-reaching claims, which was widely hailed as a landmark victory for the rule of law under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).  

Beijing considers nearly the whole South China Sea as its own based on its nine-dash line historical map.

The Philippines’ mutual defense treaty ally, the United States, has recently stated that it is prepared to aid Manila if armed conflict breaks out between China and the Philippines over the mineral-rich sea region.

Other allies such as Australia and Canada, however, have also been ramping up cooperative activities with Manila.

The trip to Scarborough, called Bajo de Masinloc by the Philippines, was no doubt meant to gauge how China would respond to a freedom of navigation operation.

Both Australia and Canada are “middle powers”, or countries that are not yet great powers but are endowed with enough significant resources to act decisively and independently in international affairs.

The Philippines, meanwhile, is considered to be an emerging middle power, especially with regard to its open defiance of China in the South China Sea.

“The trilateral maritime cooperative among middle powers Australia, Canada and the Philippines near the Scarborough Shoal is the boldest show of force on freedom of navigation,” Filipino security analyst Chester Cabalza, who heads the Manila-based think tank International Development and Security Cooperation, told Asia Times.

“Even without the United States in the equation, it conveys that every nation has the right to sail in Manila’s exclusive economic zone,” he said.

The drills involved sharpening maritime domain awareness, closer coordination and a daring ship-to-ship transfer of Australian and Filipino troops.

The highlight came on Wednesday (September 3) when an Australian airplane used for intelligence gathering flew overhead to showcase its capability, while a disarmed submarine drone was released in waters in an “exercise box” in an area just south of Scarborough Shoal.

The Coordinated Anti-Submarine Warfare Exercise was meant to “detect, localize and recognize underwater threats,”  Lieutenant Junior Grade Prince Charles Bauyot, the anti-submarine warfare officer of the BRP Jose Rizal, told reporters invited aboard the ship.

Two People’s Liberation Army Navy ships – a destroyer and a frigate – closely shadowed the exercise. In one instance, one of the PLA vessels, which identified itself as “warship 163”, contacted the ships participating in drills to stay at a safe distance as it maneuvered in the contested waters.

China’s Southern Theater Command appears to have confirmed its deployment, saying it held a “routine patrol” in the South China Sea on Wednesday, but accused the Philippines of undermining peace and stability through joint patrols with other countries.

The PLA Navy ships were observed following the ships involved in the drills and did not appear to be conducting training of their own.

Bauyot referred to the Chinese as “interlopers” but stressed their presence did not hinder the exercises. “We are monitoring them and we have challenged them multiple times,” he said, adding that the Chinese navy ships were some 20 nautical miles away from the group.

“Our exercise box is …within [the Philippines’] exclusive economic zone (with participating ships) sailing within our territorial waters,” he added.

While it was a three-way multilateral exercise, the United States also joined in the activity, deploying a P-8A Poseidon surveillance aircraft over the region.

Cabalza said that the exercises were an effective way “in constructing customary practices in terms of confidence-building mechanisms in the West Philippine Sea.”

“The coalition of middle powers to assert maritime rules-based order makes the action successful to tell the world to respect the sovereignty of the Philippines in the Scarborough Shoal following the 2016 arbitral award,” he said.

However, Cabalza said he did not see Australia signing a “mutual defense treaty” like the one Manila has had with Washington since 1951.

That deal is considered by many as a “legacy military agreement” that has kept the Philippines, and by extension the region, under the mantle of US protection for years, analysts say.

“Australia carves its own unique identity in its strategic partnership with the Philippines. Canberra has redefined its role with Manila as a reliable and close partner in the Indo-Pacific region,” Cabalza said.

The multilateral drills came just shortly after the Philippines and Australia wrapped up Exercise Alon, two-way war games that involved some 3,600 personnel on both sides in what was billed as the largest ever bilateral exercise between the two nations.

China has been harassing Filipino ships in the South China Sea for years, encroaching on waters and features that are clearly within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.

Prior to the latest Philippine-Australia-Canada drills, a PLA Navy ship accidentally rammed into a China Coast Guard vessel while harassing a Filipino coast guard boat near the Scarborough Shoal.

That harassment underscored Beijing’s rising level of aggression, though the situation has not yet crossed the threshold where Manila would seek to invoke its mutual defense treaty with Washington.

Jason Gutierrez was head of Philippine news at BenarNews, an online news service affiliated with Radio Free Asia (RFA), a Washington-based news organization that covered many under-reported countries in the region. A veteran foreign correspondent, he has also worked with The New York Times and Agence France-Presse (AFP).