Calls for the Chinese to get off Mischief Reef will probably have to await a new US administration. In the meantime, the Philippines needs to devise sensible security policies, pass the VFA, and actively contribute to a revitalized alliance. The US Congress takes a particularly dim view of allies who want to have their cake and eat it.
Filipinos need to be reminded that alliances bring security benefits, but they also involve cost and risk, and not just for the junior partner. True, closer cooperation with the United States risks dragging the Philippines into US-China tensions which arise from other causes. But without US maritime protection, the Philippines stands to lose its independence, as well as the territories it claims in the Spratlys.
In the case of Indonesia, Southeast Asia's other great archipelago, Japan and Australia have vital interests at stake, and complementary means of influence. Japan has economic capacity that Australia lacks, while Australia has long established defense connections which afford it an influence not available to Japan. Indonesia's current situation is indeed parlous. But if Indonesia can be helped through its current crisis, the bulwark of resistance to Chinese hegemony might be restored.
Only if they combine in defense of their interests, and actively seek the countervailing support they need, can the archipelagic states hope to escape Chinese power. But in order to resist, they need more active encouragement from the maritime powers.
1The Spratlys are also claimed by Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and Brunei. China, Taiwan and Vietnam claim the entire group. The Philippines claims nearly all of it, while Malaysia claims only a small portion in the southern sector. All but Brunei have forces stationed in these tiny islets, some barely above sea level.
2 The first effort was through the instrument of pro-Beijing forces among the ethnic Chinese in Singapore in the 1950s. The second effort was in Indonesia in the 1960s, where China used the Indonesian Communist Party as its instrument.
3 Wang Gungwu, The Chinese Way： China's Position in International Relations (Oslo, Scandinavian University Press, 1996) p.69
4 The US-Philippine Mutual Defense Treaty of 1951 applies only to the metropolitan territory of the Philippines. But it does call for bilateral consultation in the event of an attack on Philippine armed forces. It appears to have been this clause that prompted then Secretary of State Warren Christopher to warn China in 1995 against the use of force, and to remind the Chinese foreign minister that the United States has treaty obligations to the Philippines. Henry J. Kenny, "The South China Sea： a Dangerous Ground", Naval War College Review, Summer 1996, Vol. XLIX, No 3, p.102.
5 The Philippines and Vietnam protested on an individual basis. So did the United States.
6 According to press reports, China said at the time that the same principles used in the Paracels would be extended later to the Spratlys. Michael Richardson, "ASEAN to Protest Beijing Claims in the South China Sea", International Herald Tribune, 22 July 1996, p.4 (Emphasis added.) Professor Ji Guoxing has recently written that "China is entitled to have its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and continental shelf rights in the Spratlys Islands sea areas in accordance with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Ji Guoxing, "China versus South China Sea Security", Security Dialogue, Vol. 29 No 1 1998, p.103. (Emphasis added.)
7 Barry Wain, "The Smiling but Unrelenting Dragon", Asian Wall Street Journal 7-8 October 1997.
8 Philip Bowring, "The Spratlys： China's Neighbors are Losing Patience", International Herald Tribune 7 April 1995
