No gain, no respect

 

Never been tested since it was signed in 1951, the Mutual Defence Treaty (MDT) between the Philippines and the United States is a relic of the Cold War. In the language of the treaty, both countries are bound to support each other if either was to be attacked by another country.

The closest the treaty has been invoked was during the 1960s when Malaysian troops threatened to attack the Philippines for its claim over Sabah in the island of Borneo. Declining to assist the Philippines under the MDT, U.S. officials claimed that Malaysia was also an ally and that the American government would not interfere.

Just like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the MDT was designed to stave off the spread of communism, particularly from the Soviet Union. With the dismantling of the Soviet Union and effectively reining Germany’s appetite for military aggression, NATO now is an alliance in search of a common enemy and a clear purpose. NATO cannot survive simply by aligning itself with Washington’s security policies and its seemingly endless war against the Taliban or Al-Qaeda, so many of its member nations are now veering towards less dependency on American military protection.

MANILA (Nov. 16, 2011) - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is greeted by Cmdr. Brian Mutty, commanding officer of the guided-missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald. Secretary Clinton, U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines Harry Thomas, Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs Albert del Rosario, and Philippine Secretary of National Defense Voltaire Gazmin signed the Manila Declaration, commemorating the 60th Anniversary of the Philippines-U.S. Mutual Defense Treaty, aboard the ship in Manila Bay. (U.S. Navy photo) Click link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXY34r8vvDw to view BAYAN'S statement "60 Years is Enough."

The threat of an armed attacked in the Pacific, which the Philippines and the United States had in their minds when they signed the MDT, never materialized. While North Korea remains belligerent to its southern neighbour, its military ambition has been effectively checked beyond the 38th parallel. Vietnam has been unified after its costly war with the United States and is not a threat to attack any of its neighbours or countries in the Pacific. Other wars in the regions have been localized and there is no danger of them spreading to other countries, much less to the Philippines. Japan has been effectively neutralized and we’re not going to see the re-emergence of an imperial Japanese power in the near or distant future. China is now the second largest economy in the world after the United States but is not likely seen as an imperialist power.

Thus, many Filipino nationalists have demanded the termination of the MDT because it has become a moribund instrument. For the Philippines in particular, the MDT is a useless treaty because it is the U.S. Congress which has the power to commit the United States to an armed conflict and therefore is never an assurance that the U.S. will come to the aid of the Philippines during a foreign attack on its territory.

Whether the United States through Congress or the U.S. President as commander-in-chief would deploy its troops to support the territorial claims of the Philippines over the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea remains more illusory than real. The United States cannot afford another big war. It has decided to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan and to help in the Arab Spring revolt in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya through leading by following, a much more indirect way of involvement.

Although it has publicly stated its new foreign policy pivot in Asia and the Pacific, the U.S. is not likely to be directly involved in any military conflict in the South China Sea. The most the United States would do, if the current impasse in the South China Sea escalates in a limited military confrontation, is to use the Philippines as its proxy in its emerging Cold War with China. In fact, President Benigno Aquino III is already on record, not as a do-nothing President, but as a willing and able spokesman and “fanboy” for the United States.

Out of the South China Sea conflict between the countries claiming territorial sovereignty over its islands and the waters around them, a new Cold War is coming into view.  These competing nations know in their hearts that military confrontation with China is an invitation to destruction. Show of force to reinforce their claims will plainly be a show, and nothing more.

The United States has seized their opportunity in the South China Sea to engage in a proxy war with China by using the Philippines as its fugleman. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has already committed to President Aquino to help the Philippines in its territorial sovereignty claim to the Spratly Islands.

Using the MDT as its cover, the United States is sending decommissioned military equipment to the Armed Forces of the Philippines such as old ambulances, old Huey helicopters, fighter and cargo planes, which the U.S. had used extensively during the Vietnam War. Lately, the U.S. has sent to the Philippines a decommissioned battleship for reconnaissance and patrol use in the South China Sea.

The U.S. military is also using the Visiting Forces Agreement between the two countries for conducting joint Balikatan training exercises to prepare Philippine troops for armed confrontation in the South China Sea, in addition to helping the Philippines combat the local communist insurgency and the Moslem separatists in Mindanao.

Philippine and U.S. soldiers conduct raid during 2012 Balikatan Exercise
 under the Visiting Forces Agreement at Fort Magsaysay. Photo by DVIDSHUB.
 Click  link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUZgO8Dnnv4&feature=relmfu
 to view "Spratlys Emerging Cold War."

So, the MDT has found a useful purpose for the United States to continue its involvement with the Philippine military, although not in accordance with the treaty’s original objective of helping each other during a foreign attack.  There is no foreign attack yet, which is unlikely to happen, but the U.S. government is directly involved in running the Armed Forces of the Philippines just the way it was before.

If this is how the MDT should be enforced, then the United States is virtually meddling with the Philippines in protecting itself from future external armed attack. For a sovereign country to allow a foreign power to dictate how it should prepare in case of foreign aggression, the Philippines is showing its true colours not only as a dependent state but as a middling puppet as well.  But then again, this is nothing really new.

The MDT has been the basis for several agreements between the U.S. and the Philippines such as the US-RP Military Assistance Agreement, later renamed as US-RP Military Advisory Group, the Visiting Forces Agreement and the Mutual Logistics Servicing Agreement. Even the U.S. military bases agreement which was finally abrogated in 1991 also traced its roots from the MDT. Thus, the MDT is known to many Filipino nationalists as the “mother of all unequal military treaties and agreements” the Philippines agreed to accept since achieving independence in 1946.

More than 60 years have passed since the MDT was signed, yet the Philippine military still remains dependent on the advice of the U.S. military for sourcing of materials, logistics and equipment, and training. The treaty never helped the AFP modernize. It only enhanced the false dependence of the Philippines on American military protection.

With the current impasse in the South China Sea, the United States is exploiting the MDT as an instrument for meddling in the conflict by using the Philippines as its proxy in the emerging Cold War with China. The U.S. State Department has officially stated that the Mutual Defence Treaty between the United States and the Philippines continues to serve as “cornerstone of our relationship and a source of stability in the region.”

The increasing threat of Chinese hegemony in the South China Sea has worried the United States—that its navy may not have full use of the sea lanes necessary for its strategic presence in the area—and its effect, too, on commercial ships that navigate from south to north of the China Sea. The U.S. does not expect, however, to be directly engaged in any military confrontation with the Chinese, which the latter can ill-afford given the state of their national economy. The American military has already been overstretched to the limits with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and another big overseas war would wreak more havoc to U.S. economic recovery.

A Cold War between the United States and China would be the best scenario for the U.S. to remain a powerful presence in Asia and the Pacific. With support from allies like Japan, Australia and the ASEAN nations, a Cold War will help the United States in the containment of China’s rise as a Pacific power.

The Cold War would simply be carried through military alliances, strategic conventional and force deployments, appeals to neutral nations and extensive aid to the countries in the region, but never direct military action. The United States and the Soviet Union have fought proxy wars before in Latin America and the Southeast Asia. It will be China’s first foray in a Cold War and the United States will take advantage of the Chinese lack of experience.

Right now, the U.S. is using as its proxies countries like the Philippines, Japan, South Korea, and Australia to stem the rise of Chinese hegemony in the region. The Philippines, in particular, plays a significant role because it has the MDT and other military agreements with the United States that enable the U.S. military to deploy its troops and warships in the guise of helping the Philippines. There are already American special forces stationed on Philippine soil and they are conducting war games with the Philippine military in waters close to the disputed area of the South China Sea.

The Philippines is drawing out the Chinese superpower to a cat-and-mouse game in the South China Sea by deploying its newest warship, courtesy of the United States, while China has responded by sending their powerful boats. This is a scenario that would be repeated many times over in the future and unless China and the other competing nations agree to a negotiated settlement of their territorial claims, the United States would only be too happy to stay in the background contented that China’s rise is at least contained at the moment.

It’s not going to be a win-win situation for the Philippines. It has already derogated its sovereignty to the United States with the MDT and other unequal military treaties, to the detriment of its own capacity to develop a self-sufficient military and to an inevitable erosion of respect from its ASEAN neighbours for its inability to stand alone.  

National hubris

 

The standoff in the South China Sea is exposing the true colours of Filipinos, at least those who still shamelessly cling to America for help in times of threat to our country’s sovereignty. I’ve read an opinion posted in my alumni e-group which says that as much as we want to break the American influence upon us, there is no one who can really help us but America.

Here I am referring to the Philippines’ territorial claim over the Spratly Islands which is also contested by five other nations that straddle the South China Sea. In fact, the Philippines has stopped calling it the South China Sea and would rather have it called the West Philippine Sea. I’m not very sure we can rename a sea without the agreement of other countries which have referred to that sea by its name on the map for a number of centuries.

Ownership of the Spratly Islands is highly debateable and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS) according to many legal scholars has no meaningful provision that could settle the sovereignty claim between the disputing countries. The effective alternative to establish territorial sovereignty is occupation and permanent settlement, which is exactly being done in small efforts by China, the Philippines and Vietnam, and of course, by oil explorations to the extent possible without military harassment. Presently, these countries have military reinforcements in the South China Sea to protect their territorial claims while all the rival countries are attempting to solve the impasse by diplomatic means.

U.S. decommissioned BRP Gregorio del Pilar ship enroute to the Philippines from
 Alameda, California to help the Philippine Navy patrol the South China Sea. Photo
 courtesy of  Bytemarks. Click link to view "The South China Sea: Troubled Waters,"
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEbIv2ZxKuI&feature=related

The Philippine government has been the most vociferous in seeking American military support. To date, it has received a decommissioned naval vessel from the United States to help in reconnaissance and maritime patrol. In a meeting with the South Korean president recently, Philippine President Benigno Aquino III has also asked his counterpart for aircraft, boats and other military hardware to help the Philippine military in its territorial dispute with China over the Spratly Islands. Obviously, the other countries which also have territorial claims to the Spratly Islands are relying on their respective military resources.

Compared with the other countries, the Philippines does not really have an effectively functioning navy or the significant equivalent of an ample military force that could protect its territorial claim. Hence, why it has been unabashedly making overtures to the United States government for help.

China has fleets of submarines, frigates, and destroyers and, much recently, an aircraft carrier. Vietnam also has a number of submarines, like Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia. In addition, Thailand has a small aircraft carrier.

The Philippines has one of the longest, and perhaps, the deepest harbours in the world where a strong navy can thrive. Subic Bay used to be the refuelling and repair station of the U.S. Seventh Fleet. But the American government was only interested in establishing military bases on Philippine soil for use of its military rather than in helping the Philippine government develop a self-sufficient military infrastructure for defence purposes. Even the moribund mutual defence treaty between the United States and the Philippines provided no concrete assurance that the U.S. would come to the defence of the Philippines when threatened by foreign invasion.

When the military bases were closed after the termination of the agreements between the U.S. and the Philippines, the U.S. government found an alternative to keep its presence in the Philippines as part of its military campaign against terrorism. Now the U.S. government has deployed its special forces to help the Philippine military combat the local communist insurgency and Moslem separatists in Southern Mindanao, both considered terrorists by the United States. Through a Visiting Forces Agreement, both the U.S. and Philippine military have conducted joint exercises in waters close to the South China Sea, in a way reinforcing the territorial claims of the Philippine government to the Spratly Islands.

Philippine Navy Special Forces on training exercises with U.S. Special Forces in
South China Sea. Photo courtesy of LightAj.

The barefaced idea, however, that only the U.S. government can help the Philippines in its territorial claim to the Spratly Islands is only promoting dependency on a foreign power and entrenching the historical subservience of the Philippines to its former colonial master. This Philippine mendicancy shows we’re willing to fight foreign aggression tooth and nail to preserve our sovereignty but we’ll allow American intrusion anytime. It’s not that there’s no other country which can help us, it is that it is only the United States which can help us.

Even before the Americans took the Philippines as its first colony on the eve of the twentieth century, the country’s national hero Jose Rizal had already predicted the coming of the Americans based on his reading of the observations by a German traveller named Feodor Jagor. Jagor was already prophesying the commercial growth and industrial development in America and it was just a matter of time for the nascent U.S. power to claim its share of colonies in the world.

Since the Americans established its foothold in the Philippines, it has always been based on its permanent economic and military interests in the region, never for altruistic reasons. The unequal treaties, between the two governments, whether economic or military, were always lopsided in favour of the U.S. government. Contingents of Filipino soldiers were sent by the Philippine government in Korea and Vietnam to fight along with American soldiers the creeping communist powers north of these two countries. The Philippines also sent troops to fight with Americans in Iraq. In return, the U.S. government has been providing foreign assistance, mostly money and decommissioned equipment to the Philippine military. Where the financial assistance actually went will not surprise anyone given the pervasive corruption in the country.

The Visiting Forces Agreement between the Philippines and the United States gives an excuse for American troops to be involved in the fight against the communist insurgents and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. There are even talks between the two governments for the re-establishment of U.S. bases in the Philippines, and with the South China Sea being part of America’s pivot foreign policy, military bases in the Philippines would again be on the front and centre of American presence in Asia and the Pacific.

There is today a growing consensus among European nations to end their dependency on American military protection. This is highly inconvenient to U.S. President Barack Obama who needs all the help he can get, even from small allies, if only for political reasons. With the fall of the Soviet Union and America’s decision to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has found itself without a clear goal and a common enemy. Postwar Europe has always tended to fall in line with Washington’s security policies, and this is what kept NATO going since 1949.

A military alliance like NATO without a clear common enemy is almost impossible to maintain. Europeans are now realizing that the only solution to their military problems is to reduce their dependence on the United States and take greater responsibility for their own defence. With the Americans being less and less able to be the world’s policemen, European governments are struggling to define their common interests which are unlikely to be best represented by a seemingly endless war with the Taliban or Al-Qaeda.

At the same time, the Americans have also realized the need to refocus their foreign policy and military strategy to confront the rising threat of Chinese hegemony in Asia and the Pacific, which explains why the U.S. considers the South China Sea as vital sea lanes to its navy and for commercial and trade routes. The military exercises between the U.S. and the Philippine military have also concentrated in protecting oil rigs in the South China Sea, obviously in anticipation of Chinese aggression.

While European nations and other countries for that matter are beginning to see the folly of dependence on American military protection, the Philippines is a rare exception. Military dependence on the United States is a very clear policy of preserving the historical subservience of the Philippines to its former colonial master. Already without a strong national culture because of too much American influence on the values and habits of Filipinos, losing one’s national pride in exchange for military consideration is not a hard bargain to make. It’s probably much easier for the American government to mobilise Filipinos to join the army to fight the Chinese in the event of a confrontation in the South China Sea than asking Americans to risk the blood of their soldiers without the solid backing of their citizens.

The subservient attitude of Filipinos to American interests is almost like a national hubris, a basic precondition of Filipino-American relationship. Where the American flag goes, so there goes the Philippine flag, too.

American sailors on Rest & Recreation with Filipino girls in Manila. Photo
courtesy of  Chris Koerner

Some militant members of the Philippine Congress, and they are just a miniscule few, have cautioned against bringing the mighty U.S. army to the South China Sea conflict. Theirs is the most honourable position every Filipino should take: to assert sovereignty and territorial integrity over Philippine territorial waters but not allow any foreign country, be it China or the United States, to exploit our waters and its resources for their economic, military or hegemonic interest.

Our record of mendicancy only proves that as a nation we are not capable of self-government. When foreign aggression confronts us, we always tend to cry on the shoulders of the U.S. government and ask for help. In foreign relations, we have never learned that there are no permanent friends, only permanent interests. The U.S. has waded its feet on the South China Sea conflict because it gives them the reason to re-establish their hegemony in the region, and we are aiding and abetting the Americans to achieve their goal against our patrimony and national interest.

U.S. proxy war with China imminent in the Spratlys

 

Of all the competing claims for territorial sovereignty to the Spratlys, the Philippine claim is the strongest and most compelling.

Based on the criteria of discovery, occupation and settlement, and jurisdictional rights outlined under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS), the Philippines can make a more solid case than either China or Vietnam, the two other countries that are also asserting their claims over a potentially oil-and-other-minerals-rich Spratlys.

Filipinos in Toronto rally before the Chinese Consulate, July 8, 2011, to protest
China's encroachment in Philippine territory in the Spratly Islands. Click link to
view :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qTkQSbYmJU (Spratly Islands).

Recent reports that China is shipping a giant oil rig to start drilling in the hotly-contested Spratly Islands have enraged concerned Filipinos, particularly those living in the United States and Canada, to protest on the streets in several cities which observers believe could draw U.S. involvement in the escalating South Sea China conflict.

With China’s recent aggressiveness near the Spratly Islands, the Philippines ran to the United States to invoke the moribund 1951 Mutual Defence Treaty which made it obligatory for one to defend the other, when the latter is being attacked.

The United States government, with its usual diplomatic double-talk, made reassurances that it will not abandon the Philippines should the Spratly conflict further intensify. Senator John McCain publicly exhorted his government to extend stronger diplomatic support to an ally in the face of China’s bullying tactics.

During a meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario, Secretary Clinton committed to defend the Philippines and emphasized that the U.S. would provide the Philippines with reliable military hardware so it can upgrade its capability to defend its territories in the South China Sea.

U.S. to beef up military response

It must be recalled that when the United States closed its military bases in the Philippines, China declared the whole of the South China Sea in 1992 as a part of its internal waters. The U.S. reaction was ambiguous as it stressed its neutrality on the Spratlys issue. It only changed its posture when the Chinese occupied the Panganiban (Mischief) Reef in 1995, prompting the U.S. to fashion a new type of military response through the Philippine-American Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) to justify the presence of American troops conducting joint and combined military exercises with the Armed Forces of the Philippines in its territories.

The global war on terrorism in 2001 further gave impetus to American military presence on Philippine soil. China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea is now viewed not only as a security challenge but more of a military threat.

Map of Spratly Islands, Encyclopedia Britannica, 1996. Click link
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKgh-ydvXqo&feature=relmfu,
to view "The Meaning of Military Exercises in South China Sea."

It was in this context that many observers interpreted Secretary Clinton’s robust commitment to defend the Philippines in the South China Sea as a clear indication of the U.S. intent to remain and exert a strong military presence in the region.

China, on its part, has asked the United States to stay away from the regional conflict, thus signalling what many have observed as the beginning of a US proxy war with China in the South China Sea, particularly on Philippine battleground.

What is a proxy war?

A proxy war is not really a full-scale war and it works best during a Cold War, when there are no real armed hostilities. It results when opposing powers, such as the United States and China, use a third party like the Philippines as a substitute for fighting each other directly. A proxy war does not necessarily lead to full-scale armed hostilities, especially when two superpowers do not wish to fight each other directly and would not risk an escalation to a bigger and more destructive conflict.

From a strategic perspective, some political observers in the region are viewing the ongoing territorial disputes in the South China Sea as not just a battle for maritime rights over oil and other mineral resources.

Many affirm that these disputes pose a real test to the emerging regional structure dominated by an ever-growing Chinese influence due to its robust economy, on one hand, and the shrinking U.S. clout in the region, on the other.

Security, in addition to oil, is another incentive in the Spratlys dispute. The Spratlys have long been considered as strategic bases for sea-lane defence, interdiction, surveillance and potential launching sites for land attacks.

The United States has very significant national security interests in maintaining unimpeded transit rights—on the surface, in the air and under the sea—throughout the South China Sea, especially to protect Japan in the event of hostilities. It seems unlikely for the U.S. to voluntarily accede to China’s supremacy over this part of the world without getting major concessions that will enhance its security interests. U.S. involvement becomes even more imminent due to pressures from its allies like Australia, Japan, and South Korea to counter the growing threat of a Chinese hegemony in the Asia-Pacific.

Daixu, a strategic analyst at the Chinese Energy Fund Board, has written that a Sino-U.S. proxy war is absolutely not alarmist. Quoting from the work of the American scholar Wei Lianen, he wrote that “expansion through war is in the nature of the United States….it has been transformed into a belligerent Sparta state.”

Popular opposition to China’s intimidating behaviour toward the other claimant countries in the South China Sea augurs well for American involvement in the regional conflict. It provides the United States with the opportunity and justification to enter into the fray, thus ensuring its strategic economic and military presence in the region.

A study conducted by Rand Corporation has recommended that the U.S. government beef up its military forces in the region and shift its security strategy from north to south. The Rand proposal envisions the integration of the Philippines into a new comprehensive security partnership along with Japan, South Korea, Australia, Singapore and Thailand to prevent the rise of a dominant regional power (like China) that could undermine America’s role in the region.

Philippines caught in tug-of-war

U.S. involvement in the Spratlys dispute will further entrench the PHL-U.S. Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) and deepen the participation of the Philippines in American military operations in the region. Since the VFA was signed in 1999, several war exercises between the two countries have been conducted in Palawan or just a few kilometres away from the disputed Spratly islands, which Beijing protested as an indirect offense to China.

In August of this year, the Philippines and the United States are meeting to review their little-used mutual defence pact and consider U.S. access to its former military bases in the country. According to many observers, all these can be viewed as U.S. initiatives to revitalize and entrench its military involvement in the region.

Filipino demonstrators march during a protest rally in front of the US embassy in
 Manila,  opposing  joint military exercises. Photo by Francis R. Malasig/EP. Click
link to view http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66V8JQRKDxI&feature=relmfu,
" The Balance in the South China Sea."

Loud and boisterous protests by overseas Filipinos against China’s aggressive stance in the South China Sea are playing into the hands of the U.S. government. Global Filipinos are giving the United States a welcome invitation, which if not carefully dealt with, could undermine or short-change the long-term economic interests of the Philippines in the Spratlys.

Need to assert national sovereignty

During the Philippine celebration of Independence Day last June 12, Vencer Crisostomo, chairman of the national youth group of Anakbayan, denounced Philippine president Noynoy Aquino for begging for U.S. intervention in the Spratlys dispute. The youth leader said, “Their script is predictable: on the grounds of China’s bullying, we will ask for help from our supposed long-standing ally, the U.S. First, we will be given more arms, then more U.S troops, and then eventually the return of U.S military bases.”

“We should assert our national sovereignty on our own terms, instead of allowing ourselves to become the battleground of a U.S proxy war with China,” Crisostomo added.

The trajectory of Filipino protests against China, therefore, must be redirected, not against China’s show of military muscle in the region, but against its continuing refusal and arrogance in refusing to recognize the claims of the other nations, and its bull-headed objection to a multilateral settlement of the conflicting territorial claims. China’s intransigence is the cause of the present stalemate. Absent China’s cooperation, however, the disputes will remain for generations and this could engender a de facto military occupation by whoever has the military wherewithal.

Promoting a multilateral solution

At the same time, the protests should also target American entrenchment of its military goals and operations in the region. Continuing U.S. presence will only exacerbate the tense atmosphere in the South China Sea, which could potentially trigger a military confrontation in the region.

Instead of hyping up the Spratly Islands conflict by issuing provocative and agitative statements, the Philippines can take the lead in promoting a peaceful and multilateral resolution of the Spratlys dispute by the Southeast Asian nation-claimants, without U.S. intervention.