U.S. President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos will meet in Washington on April 11. This is the first such joint meeting—and it’s thanks to Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
How so?
Chinese pressure on both the Philippines’s and Japan’s maritime territory is bringing everyone together.
Back to the Future
The Philippines is fighting off aggressive Chinese encroachment on its maritime territory. It isn’t the first time.In 2012, the Chinese grabbed Scarborough Shoal—well within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.
The United States did nothing when China broke its promise to then-Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell to withdraw its ships and instead remained to occupy Scarborough Shoal.
State Department lawyers produced excuses for why the mutual defense treaty didn’t apply.
The Filipinos were dismayed.
Then, in 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled in favor of Philippine claims and largely demolished Beijing’s claims. The Obama administration remained mostly mute, expecting Beijing to reciprocate the restraint.
It didn’t.
Instead, it dismissed the ruling as a piece of “scrap paper.”
Even worse, the Americans had encouraged the Philippines to bring the suit.
Today
China is still on Scarborough Shoal. Now, it’s trying to make it difficult, if not impossible, for the Philippines to resupply its men stationed on a deliberately grounded navy ship on Second Thomas Shoal, a location that is, as determined by the Court of Arbitration, well inside Philippine waters.In addition to bumping and blocking, the Chinese blasted the Philippine ships with high-power water hoses, causing structural damage and serious injury to crewmen, including Philippine military personnel.
The Chinese—including a navy helicopter—are also interfering with Filipino ocean research efforts in Philippine waters.
The Filipinos gamely resist, but the Chinese have the upper hand, and anytime they want, they can keep the Filipinos from their own territory.
Mr. Marcos has stuck his neck out since taking office almost two years ago. He’s shifted his country away from China and revived the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement that allows U.S. military access to a number of facilities in the Philippines. Military exercises with the Americans and others have also ramped up.
The Americans have done joint naval and air patrols elsewhere in the South China Sea. But U.S. ships and planes haven’t accompanied the Filipinos to where the Chinese get rough with the Philippine ships or when Manila asserts its rights by, for example, removing China-installed barriers at the entrance to Scarborough Shoal.
Mr. Marcos is looking for help at this meeting.
Are Mr. Marcos’s and the Philippines’s hopes misplaced? They will soon find out.
Beyond pushing the Filipinos around, Beijing is challenging the United States.
The Stakes
So the stakes are high, as are Filipino expectations.The Americans are talking a good game.
“The United States reaffirms that Article IV of the 1951 U.S.–Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty extends to armed attacks on Philippine armed forces, public vessels, or aircraft—including those of its Coast Guard—anywhere in the South China Sea.”
All good, but U.S. spokespeople always seem at pains to stress that it is “armed” attacks that trigger American support. And people in Manila (and Beijing) notice this. The Philippines might worry that the Americans are once again looking for a way out. They’ve heard empty pronouncements before. And the Chinese might reckon that as long as they don’t “shoot,” the Americans won’t do much.
A Filipino friend noted the other day: “We can take only so much. People feel the Chinese push us to the point where Washington will have to step up and do more.”
Washington might or might not. It can take the “legal” escape route or keep its promises. You see, there’s the precise wording of a treaty—but there’s also the spirit of a treaty.
The U.S.–Philippine security treaty presumably did not intend to allow an enemy (communist China) to use water cannons and a swarm of ships to occupy and seize Philippine territory.
The Biden administration either gives the Philippines the help it needs—and was promised at least under the spirit of the treaty—and runs the risk of a fight with China, or it accepts humiliation at the hands of the Chinese and retreats.
And it’s not just the Filipinos watching what Washington will do next. Everyone else in Asia (and beyond) will make up their own minds about U.S. promises of protection—explicit or implicit.
And if it fails, that will be “strike three” for the United States. It might as well go home at that point.
What about the Japanese? They know they are next on Beijing’s menu. They are quietly doing a lot for the Philippines—and they should keep it up. It would be nice if Japan Coast Guard ships helped out, but that’s unlikely.
By showing up to the meeting, Japan is letting the Philippines know it is involved and might also be hinting that it expects the U.S. military to pitch in when it needs help in protecting Japanese maritime territory.
But ultimately, it’s the United States that has the treaty with the Philippines and whose “word” is on the line.
As it happens, Mr. Campbell, who was bamboozled at the time of the Scarborough Shoal retreat, is the current deputy secretary of state. And Jake Sullivan, the current national security adviser, served as the director of policy planning at the State Department and national security adviser to then-Vice President Biden, who is now president.
This team has been here before. The question is, will history repeat itself, or have they learned from their mistakes?
