South China Sea Update: Will the U.S. Really Defend the Philippines Against China?
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Hello and welcome to another edition of the China Global South podcast, a proud member of the Sinica Podcast Network. I’m Eric Olander, and this week I’m joined by CGSP’s Southeast Asia editor, Edwin Bean Shreemo. Good morning to you, Edwin. How are you? Good morning. I’m good. It’s great to have you on the show.
Today we’re going to be talking about what’s going on in the South China Sea. Now, this is an issue that has fallen off a lot of people’s attention over the past several months because of all the drama that’s been happening with the tariffs with the United States and Donald Trump and all of that and everything that’s going on now between the U.S. and China. Meantime, there are a lot of events that have been happening in the past few weeks in the South China Sea between the Philippines and China, and that’s what we want to bring you up to date on today.
So let me just give you a few kind of scene settings of what’s been happening over the past week or two, just to kind of lay the groundwork for what we’re going to talk about today. We had another near collision last Sunday near the Scarborough Shoal between the China Coast Guard and the Philippines Coast Guard. Let’s take a listen to how Philippines media covered the event.
Another near collision between Philippine and Chinese ships in disputed waters. The Philippine Coast Guard said a Chinese Coast Guard vessel on Sunday engaged in reckless and dangerous maneuvers when it attempted a head-on collision with the PCG’s BRP Cabra near the Scarborough Shoal. The PCG adds it was only through the seamanship skills of the BRP Cabra’s crew that averted the two ships from colliding. The PCG also says the presence of the BRP Cabra has effectively pushed the Chinese Coast Guard vessel further away and is now located approximately 92 to 96 nautical miles off the coast of Kaponis Island.
China is claiming the whole South China Sea, a claim that had been rejected by an international tribunal in 2016. What’s interesting is that these types of collisions were something that was happening with a lot of frequency last year. And remember, we also saw a lot of the videos coming from these collisions. That was something the Philippines called the Transparency Initiative. They’ve stopped doing that. So they don’t have as many influencers on board. They don’t have as many journalists on board. So we’re not seeing these collisions or near collisions take place and kind of fill up social media. And that’s one of the reasons why you may not have heard about some of these things that are going on.
What’s interesting, though, was a couple of days later. So that was at Scarborough Shoal. Then a couple of days later, on Wednesday of last week, the Chinese issued a statement that said that the China Coast Guard, and this is very interesting wording here, allowed and supervised a Philippine resupply mission on Wednesday to a warship illegally grounded at what they called Renai Reef, and that’s the Second Thomas Shoal, in the South China Sea.
Now, the reason why that wording is interesting is because this whole idea of them allowing and supervising implies, again, that they have the sovereignty. The Philippine reading on this resupply of the BRP Sierra Madre, if that sounds familiar to you, that’s that old decrepit warship that’s kind of grounded on the Second Thomas Shoal, which serves as Manila’s territorial claim in that part of the South China Sea. And again, the Philippines have a totally different reading of this. But they did acknowledge, though, that the resupply mission went ahead last week. So that was a positive thing because we did not see any confrontation.
But then at the end of last week, the Chinese Ministry of Defense issued another statement critical of the United States. And this is, again, an ongoing theme of what the Chinese are doing. Senior Colonel Zhang Xiaogang, he’s a spokesman for the China’s Ministry of National Defense. And let me read you his statement here. He said the U.S. is meddling in the South China Sea, undermining China’s territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests and attempting to threaten and coerce China. This approach will simply not work.
Here’s the interesting part. To the Philippines side, relying on foreign support to quote, “make waves at sea” will backfire and being a pawn will only be used and discarded. It’s interesting because one of the narrative points that the Chinese are now amplifying is this idea that the Philippines is simply going to be discarded as a partner of the United States, picking up on some of the rhetoric that people have been talking about vis-a-vis the U.S. in Ukraine, for example, and Donald Trump’s questioning of alliances around the world. And so the Chinese are really trying to amplify this notion that the Philippines is going to be just like those others.
While this is all happening, and Edwin, I’m really excited to get your take on this, the Philippines is undergoing an arms buildup, the likes we have not seen, at least in my lifetime. $5.5 billion just approved to purchase U.S. F-16s. The Philippines also took delivery of two South Korean warships, and 20 Australian advanced drones were donated to the Philippine Coast Guard, and that’s going to help them improve their domain awareness capabilities, particularly in the South China Sea, using drones.
So, Edwin, this is a story you’ve been following quite closely, particularly on these arms deals. Tell us a little bit about what you’re seeing out here in the region. Yeah, what we have, what we have previously, is that the Philippines have weaker equipment and hardware in military terms. But on the soldier’s side, on the men’s side, they are battle-hardened, but they are weak in equipment and hardware. So just recently, we have news that they are buying, their request, quote-unquote, got approved that they will purchase this F-16 Block 70 or 72. They are just receiving one corvette of two, and this drone, a high-capacity drone.
What’s interesting is that all this equipment is a leap in terms of capability of the Philippine military. And not just that, it’s not the fighter jet, the corvette, and the drones, it’s what they can do. It’s their equipment, it’s their capability. It’s way above the equipment that the Philippines has. So I’m interested, and I think it’s interesting to see how those equipment, when they arrive and when they are operational, changes the military calculation, changes the tactical and strategic calculation of the military situation in the South China Sea, especially in the Scarborough Shoal and the Second Thomas Shoal. And how would that be changing the whole situation, the whole tension there? It’s very interesting.
Well, Edwin, you’ve asked precisely the right questions for our guest today. Ray Powell, who is the director of the Sea Light Initiative at Stanford University’s Gordian Knotts Center for National Security Innovation. He is also co-host of the Why Should We Care About the Indo-Pacific podcast, an excellent podcast co-hosted with Jim Caruso. And he’s joining us from Northern California this evening. Thank you so much for staying up late with us, Ray. Great to have you back on the program.
Great to be here, gentlemen. Thanks so much. Well, Edwin raised the issue of all these military purchases that the Philippines are making. You know, I went through some of the rundown of just the past few weeks. A lot of people are not paying attention to what’s going on in the South China Sea now because of all the bigger issues that are going on in the world today. Let’s just start with your assessment as somebody who follows this very closely.
And again, full disclaimer, it’s not a secret. You’re very critical of China’s position and much more sympathetic to the Philippines’ perspective on all of this. But give us your take on what you’re seeing right now in the South China Sea in terms of the tensions between the Philippines and China. Sure. You know, when we saw maybe back last summer is when things really came to a head. And back then, there were really two big issues that came up. One, of course, was this issue over the Second Thomas Shoal and that decrepit ship.
And you saw in the summertime in June, there was that really dramatic showdown where you had the Chinese Coast Guard out there with bladed weapons and ramming into Philippine boats. And there was a Philippine sailor who lost a thumb. It was very dramatic. And it seems like that kind of forced both sides to take a very deep breath. And they came up with, as you noted, this very strange truce by which each one claims something completely different is happening.
So China claims, well, we’ve got everything we wanted. They only get to resupply when we say so. They have to give us advance notice. The Philippines says, no, we’re not really doing any of that. We get to do what we need to do. And somehow, you know, being able to go forward with these two very different narratives seems to work for everybody. And it seems like nobody wants to go back to where they were.
So that seems to be at kind of a steady drumbeat. Every 45 days or so, there’s another resupply. These two completely different messages come out. And everybody kind of goes on. So that’s that. The other thing that was happening last summer was we had this very odd standoff at Sabina Shoal, where the Philippines went out and they took one of their larger Coast Guard ships and dropped anchor and stayed there for about five months throughout the summer.
And there were a lot of dramatics around trying to get that resupplied. There was, in fact, a 60 Minutes crew from the United States that was on one of the ships that was rammed during an attempted resupply mission. And eventually, the Philippines ship pulled anchor and left because, frankly, they were running out of supplies and it was just too hard to keep it resupplied. And in that case, actually, the fact that the ship could float, as opposed to the one at the Second Thomas Shoal, which, of course, is too rusty to float, kind of worked in China’s favor because they could always say, look, you can always just leave. And eventually, that’s what happened.
So those two situations in the Spratly Islands have kind of settled down. And now most of the action is up around, as you said, Scarborough Shoal, where you’ve had this close encounter with a Chinese helicopter, where you’ve had this near ramming. All of these things have been happening as China has actually strengthened its position around the shoal and is now trying to keep the Philippine ships a lot further out.
Yeah, that’s interesting. So they kind of have this understanding truce, but it’s still happening, still in the Scarborough Shoal and in the Second Thomas Shoal. But here in this location, they’re still happening, although it’s on the Coast Guard level, but still the tension jitters everybody still.
Yeah, so the truce was localized to the Second Thomas Shoal. So essentially what was going on at the Second Thomas Shoal, where was this, you have this ship out there that cannot float, right? And there are Marines and sailors aboard the ship that have to eat. They have to get medicine. They have to get water. They have to be rotated. All of these things have to happen every month or two. And that was where all of the dramatics were happening.
And, you know, last summer was essentially where, during that very dramatic encounter, where they seemed to mutually decide that maybe we shouldn’t invite sort of disaster every time the Philippines wants to do a resupply. So they came to this agreement, but that was simply for that one location, Second Thomas Shoal. Scarborough Shoal, there is no such agreement.
I guess let’s just cut to the chase here and pick up back up where the Chinese Ministry of Defense statement was, kind of talking about the Philippines being a pawn of the Americans. That’s not a new line. We’ve been hearing that for quite some time. But it takes on a different resonance now, given the kind of perceptions of the United States here in Southeast Asia. In Vietnam, in Cambodia, they are literally facing existential threats to their economy because of these tariffs.
You know, I wrote earlier this week that this has traumatized the region. I mean, we’re looking at real economic massive dislocation if these tariffs go through. And at the same time, there’s a lot of confusion after listening to Donald Trump talk about the European alliances. There’s concern that the United States is going to bail on AFRICOM, the U.S.-Africa command. He has disparaged the relationship with South Korea and Japan in terms of those alliances, saying that the Americans are being exploited.
It understandably raises a lot of concerns among Southeast Asians, particularly those in the Philippines, wondering, will the United States back its security relationships with the Philippines? That makes all of this possible because without the United States behind the Philippines, the asymmetry in the military power between the Chinese and the Philippines is obvious to everybody. Give us your perspective on all of that, where the United States standing is in this part of the world and whether or not the security alliance between the United States and Philippines still has the weight that it did in previous presidencies.
Yeah, Eric, you know, so one of the really remarkable things, and I agree, I mean, things are chaotic, right? And honestly, very few people in Washington, D.C. know what’s going on. In fact, there may be nobody who knows what’s going on except for Donald Trump, and of course, that changes from day to day. So a lot of people are trying to sort of suss this out. Having said all of that, the Philippines, I think, does take some solace in the fact that it is actually being treated pretty special by the administration and has been, even under the Biden administration, has got a lot of extra attention.
And I think that they can credit to a large degree the fact that they did and continue to some degree to have this transparency program because it has been so blatantly obvious the kind of pressure that they’ve been under. And so when Secretary Hegseth, as you mentioned, was recently in Manila, Manila has received assurances that not only is it going to get all of the aid that it was promised, there’s constantly new announcements that are being made, like the announcement around these F-16s, like the announcement that they would be deploying the Nemesis missile, which is an anti-ship missile during some upcoming exercises.
So all of the – so the relationship with the United States and the Philippines is actually moving kind of full steam ahead. So why – if I could just stop you there, why do you think that is the case in terms of the U.S.-Philippines relationship? And we never hear Donald Trump talking about how he’s being ripped off by the Philippines. They’re not paying their fair share. We don’t hear any of that. And yet he’s doing that with Japan, even Taiwan he does that with, as well as Japan. Why is Philippines special in this case?
Well, I think a couple of things. One, of course, is I think that Donald Trump’s impressions of Japan go back decades, right? I mean, he had problems with Japan in the 80s. He was worried about them dumping cars into the United States. He has a perception that the United States is providing all of the security for Japan, which is a rich country, and Japan should be providing its own security or at least paying the United States for it. Right? So he has a long-formed view of Japan. Of course, that also has applied to South Korea, which he also associates as being a fairly wealthy country. I don’t think he looks at the Philippines through the same lens.
Secondly, again, I think you really do have to continue to credit the Philippines Transparency Project because of the way that it’s brought its plight sort of front and center.
And people who watch television and see these images get the impression of this plucky little nation that’s standing up to big China, right? And so that can’t help but make a difference in people’s impressions.
Those incidents escalate to really military ones, as in all those still skirmish, but one bullet shot at the other country’s military official means a declaration of war, as far as I understand.
But would that escalate this tiny little country compared to China? Go that far in terms of their sovereignty in those shows that they claim?
Yeah, obviously, that’s a concern, right? You have to be concerned.
The reason that you are concerned is because there is a treaty alliance between the Philippines and a major nuclear power, and the antagonist is another major nuclear power, right? So you have to be concerned about that.
Having said that, I don’t think that China wants to go to war. I don’t think it wants to go to war anywhere, even Taiwan. I think that China believes that it can get what it wants, short of armed conflict, and it looks at armed conflict as being something that it doesn’t really want to risk.
So I think that China will do what it takes to de-escalate carefully.
Now, having said all that, it’s very interesting to watch China around these kinds of incidents. China, if it does de-escalate, will try to de-escalate in a way that works out in its favor, right?
And it tends to believe also that other countries want to de-escalate even more than it does. And so it’s very good at sort of watching how the board is set and seeing if it can’t use its adversary’s desire for de-escalation as its own advantage to reset the board in its favor.
But ultimately, President Marcos, when he was at Shang-La last summer, said that the death of a Philippine sailor, he would consider that an act of war.
And everybody paid attention to that, right? Because that was the first time something had been enunciated.
And I think that’s part of why the June incident in which the Philippine sailor lost a thumb got everybody’s attention.
But do you really think that the United States would go to war with China if Article 5 of the 1952 Security Treaty was activated by the Philippines?
The politics in the United States now are so fractured and divided that war requires a national consensus. And I think it would be a hard sell to the American public to go to war with the world’s most powerful navy over some rocks in the South China Sea for a cause that a lot of Americans may not fully understand.
And so I think that’s part of the Chinese confidence in pushing this, is that they don’t believe that the Americans would actually go to war for the Philippines.
Taiwan, you can make an argument over silicon chips. Japan, Korea, you can also make a very compelling argument.
But the South China Sea, I think a lot of people, a lot of Americans and certainly the Chinese have their doubts that the United States would fulfill its security alliance by going to war.
What do you think?
Well, this is, I mean, Eric, this is the eternal question, right? I mean, there’s good reason why it’s one that doesn’t get answered very often, if ever, right?
So when has the United States in the post-World War II era ever had to sort of make that determination? So it really is an important question.
And in the end, it’s a political question, as you’ve implied. There’s no court that’s going to – the Philippines can’t then go and take the United States to civil court and sue the United States for not honoring its treaty commitment.
Now, what is the cost to the United States if it is perceived to have failed to do that?
Well, of course, every country on the planet that has a treaty alliance with the United States all of a sudden has to wonder, what is that piece of paper worth, right?
So it is a – that’s what’s literally happening right now, given the breakdown of the relationship with Europe.
And the rhetoric, of course, has been extremely troublesome, right? And to some degree, there is a belief that Donald Trump looks at himself as operating in year zero, that nothing that happened before really has a bearing on what he does because he didn’t decide to do it.
And other previous presidents don’t really matter. So, yes, it is a key question.
Now, the flip side is really ultimately deterrence depends on the adversary being convinced or at least have enough doubt in their minds that the United States is both willing and able to act on its treaty commitments.
I still believe that Xi Jinping, deep down, would not want to try to test that proposition too far.
So the things that I would watch for instead would be that he would try to continue to do things below that threshold, right, in the gray zone, as we call it, to see how far he can put you.
Is the United States really going to do anything if I do this? What if I build a structure at Scarborough Shoal? What if an encounter at sea ends up in the death of a Philippine sailor?
Will the United States really go to war over the death of one sailor? Right now we’ve been seeing these aerial encounters, which are probably some of the most dramatic.
If a Philippine aircraft goes down, I think that those things would be more likely to end or to result in a diplomatic crisis than a military conflict.
From Southeast Asia looking out to the South China Sea dispute, we’re most looking at this bigger muscular boy in dispute with a smaller, weaker boy.
And the neighbors are going in the middle and stop. You still have your dispute, but don’t escalate it to a fist match because you’re going to lose your name. You’re going to lose the fight.
But now the smaller guy gets much more sophisticated weapons, and they have the sovereignty to do that when they came because they are buying it.
What makes the Southeast Asian looking out worries is that if that happens, if this, that’s my analogy, but now let’s go to China and the Philippines.
If the Philippines decides that, okay, this is too far, we are going to defend ourselves and use these weapons that we have to fight back, we are going to lose, but we at least fight back.
I mean, that incident alone would tear down all the economic security situation in this whole South Asia to China because millions of Southeast Asians are working in South Korea, Japan, even China.
Would that be an event that we need to worry about?
The Philippines decides to use those weapons and escalate because sometimes wars are started by accident or by incidents that everybody can.
You know, I think that the wars that start by accident are the exception, right? I think that for the most part, wars start because people want to go to war, and I am still under the strong impression that neither China nor the Philippines wants to go to war.
And I think in a fairly strong way, they don’t want this. So I am more sanguine about the possibility of war than I am the possibility of sort of quiet capitulation, right?
That eventually, and I think that this is what China wants, is they want somebody to come into power, somebody after Marcos, or if we’re in Taiwan, after President Lai, who is more pliable.
And they’ll say, look, you know, if you want to relieve the pressure, you can just make a deal on this and that and the other thing.
And I think they actually thought that they had that with President Duterte. I think they thought they had that with President Marcos. And then President Marcos pulled a little bit of a surprise on them and didn’t go the way that they thought he would.
I also think it’s important to look at things from the Philippines’ perspective when you look out at the rest of ASEAN. The Philippines perceives that ASEAN has kind of abandoned it, right?
That ASEAN looks at the Philippines and sees them under all of this pressure, and they get support from the United States, they get support from Australia, they get support from the Europeans, they get support from Canada, they get support from Japan, and ASEAN says nothing.
And I think that there is, just looking at it from their perspective, I think that that’s what they feel: look, we are a member of ASEAN, and we are clearly being bullied by this large power in our own exclusive economic zone, and we’re getting no help from ASEAN.
So, while ASEAN looks at the Philippines and says, you know, why can’t you stop making trouble, the Philippines are like, we’re not making the trouble, we’re trying to mind our own business, the trouble has come to us.
Yeah, it’s interesting, we spoke with Kang Vu, who’s a Vietnamese political scientist at Boston College, and he wrote an interesting article in The Diplomat a few weeks ago, contrasting how the Chinese are responding to Vietnam, who is actually engaging in territorial expansion in the South China Sea, and to the Philippines, who’s only trying to defend their existing boundaries.
And yet, the reaction to the Philippines by the Chinese is orders of magnitude more intense than it is towards the Vietnamese.
His theory is that because the United States is involved with the Philippines, and the Vietnamese are going this alone, and the Chinese are reacting to that.
So I just thought that was a really interesting kind of contrast.
I read that article, I thought it was interesting. You know, I spent three years in Vietnam, there at the U.S. Embassy, and in fact, I was there during China’s island-building campaign from 2013 to 2016.
And I think the Vietnamese were looking at us Americans saying, hey, you’ve got a plan for this, right? And we really didn’t, no, not so much.
So I think it’s more complicated than that. I mean, I think that there is something to the, for example, the relationship between the Vietnamese Communist Party and the Chinese Communist Party.
I do think that the fact that the Philippines has a U.S. alliance does inform China’s view of the Philippines.
And I think that Vietnam has taken advantage of the situation to a certain extent because China is preoccupied with the Philippines.
They have not really been able to figure out how to sort of, or that it decided that it wanted to take a strong stance against Vietnam’s island expansions and island-building. So I think it is interesting.
The other thing I think to keep in mind is, to a large extent, geography played against the Philippines in that the Philippines, within its own exclusive economic zone, has this large number of reefs.
Whereas when we’re talking about Vietnam, we’re talking about reefs that are outside of exclusive economic zone.
So all the way back 10 years ago, actually, if you go all the way back to the 90s, China lays claim to Mischief Reef smack in the middle of the Philippine exclusive economic zone.
And that has sort of put the Philippines in this really tough situation. And then, of course, in 2012, basically takes over a second feature in the Philippines exclusive economic zone in Scarborough Shoal.
And this has really brought things home to the Philippines, I think, in a way that’s more extreme than any other claimant.
Because everybody else is dealing with something out there, maybe within their claims, but not within their own EEZ.
Yeah. And just to be clear that the Chinese also did live fire exercises on their side of the border of the Gulf of Tonkin to express some displeasure with the Vietnamese.
So it’s not that the Vietnamese are getting a full pass as they are.
I’d like to get your take on a speech that’s by former Singaporean foreign minister George Yeo that’s been making the rounds on social media.
Now, this is about Taiwan. So it’s not about the Philippines, but the principle here is very interesting.
And I’d like to put this into a Philippine context. The essence of what he’s saying is that in 10 years from now, China is only going to get stronger.
So there’s an incentive to negotiate some type of resolution now because it’ll only be harder in 10 years.
Let’s take a listen to what former foreign minister George Yeo said. And then, Ray, I’d like to get your reaction in a Philippine context.
If I were Taiwanese, think about this. In 10 years’ time, China will have almost a certain counter-strike capability against the U.S.
So at a conventional level, they may not prevail. At the nuclear level, the risks are too high.
At that point, the pressure on Taiwan, political, military, economic pressure, is bound to grow.
So therefore, the status quo is a ticking bomb. To say, keep the status quo is to say, let it tick.
It will not tick forever. In 10 years’ time, you’ll be ticking much faster.
Lee Kuan Yew had always taken the position that it is better for Taiwan to negotiate with the mainland earlier rather than later.
Because the longer you wait, the weaker your relative negotiating position.
But of course, there are Taiwanese who believe that maybe if you wait long enough, something will happen to the mainland.
Some big struggle in the Communist Party. A new civil war. And then a path for Taiwan to escape and become independent.
But you cannot base policy on such a possibility. It’s too dangerous. It may happen, but it’s not a high chance.
And policy cannot be based on that.
Ray, you’re a military man, 35 years in the U.S. Air Force. You understand the politics of power.
The Chinese are getting stronger. As Edwin’s pointed out, the Philippines are buying weapons, but nowhere near the capacity of what the Chinese will have or have today.
Do you see some parallels in what George Yeo is saying in terms of Taiwan to the Philippines?
So I’ve got a couple of things to say about that. One is it’s always easy to tell another country what they should do to negotiate away things that they have to a larger country, right?
You know, if somebody tried to tell Singapore in a similar circumstance, well, you should, you know, just make a good deal with, you know, just give away a little bit of your sovereignty and things will work out.
You know, I guess the second thing is, what is the history of aggressive expansionist states being satisfied with just a little more, right?
You can over-interpret, say, 1930s Nazi Germany or those kinds of things, or 1930s Imperial Japan. But you give them just a little bit, and that doesn’t seem to be enough, right?
So the question is, if you negotiate something away, and you say, what do you get in return, right?
Do you get a promise that will be nice to you later, right? What did that get Hong Kong?
Hong Kong was supposed to have 50 years of one country, two systems. In the end, when you wake up in five years and all of a sudden the country wants more, where does that push you, right?
So we had another Singaporean diplomat or former diplomat, Bilahari Kaskun, who you probably heard from a few times.
He’s very well-known in the diplomatic community and think tanks. He had a different take.
He couldn’t understand why Taiwan wasn’t taking its own defense more seriously. You know, sort of aligning himself.
That’s been one of my questions too, actually. And kind of aligning himself, if you will, with a recently confirmed Elbridge Colby, who is now the undersecretary for policy at the Pentagon, who said, why isn’t Taiwan spending 10% of their GDP on defense if the threat is that serious?
So for the Philippines, I think, you know, that gets to be the problem; everything you give away does not satiate the appetite of the hungry shark, right? The hungry shark’s just going to be hungry again.
Yeah. Edwin, let me put that question to you. The Nantuna Islands off the coast of Indonesia are contested between Indonesia and the Philippines. Do you think that Indonesia would negotiate a resolution to the point where they might have to sacrifice the Nantuna Islands, the way that George Yeo is suggesting that Taiwan should negotiate, and potentially the Philippines might also want to do something similar?
No, because as far as I know, Indonesia does not have any territorial dispute with China. Well, the Nantuna certainly does come up in this territorial dispute. As in the sovereignty area, the 12 miles, et cetera, Indonesia doesn’t have any of that problem. What Indonesia has the problem is that the exclusive economic zone overlays with what China thinks. On that basis, it’s not territorial as in sovereignty, but the issue is this area where Indonesia has the sovereign right to exploit for our benefit. If you claim, then we are at conflict, but not to the extent of territorial integrity. Maybe it’s similar, a conflict in the exclusive economic zones. So it will not escalate to a military standoff or coast guard standoff, but a game of cat and mouse, perhaps.
It’s very often the Chinese coast guard provoking or bullying Indonesian research vessels. Let me, if I could, suggest that I was just in Kuala Lumpur a couple of months ago at a conference, and there was a Chinese diplomat who was having a question and answer. I tried to ask him three times in a public setting whether the five Spratly Islands that are occupied by Malaysia are islands that China claims indisputable sovereignty over. Three times he refused to answer the question. The reason, of course, is because, as we all know, they do, right? We hear it all the time. China has indisputable sovereignty over the Nansha Islands and, quote, relevant waters, whatever that means. So the answer is, of course, they do. But they didn’t want to say it because they haven’t got there yet. My point was that it will come for you. I was talking to Malaysia, of course. It will come. It’s not your turn. When is the last time China ever gave up on a claim?
It’s easy to sort of look at the Philippines and say, we know what you should do. You should just make a deal with China. You should just give away a little more of your sovereignty. Everything will be fine. Eventually, it’ll be Malaysia’s turn and they’ll have to make those decisions. But isn’t that fitting for the time that we’re in right now, where we’re in a period of great power politics, where literally the United States is, at least rhetorically, shifting back into an imperialist mode, talking about acquisition of Canada and Greenland and deploying troops into Panama and revival of the Monroe Doctrine? That rhetoric is not rhetoric we’ve heard. I mean, I’m 55 years old and in my lifetime, in any meaningful policy context, maybe we’re back in a period where the big powers get to push around the smaller powers.
This indignation that you’re suggesting about the Chinese in Southeast Asia and the South China Sea, well, maybe that’s just the times we’re in today. So what you’re also referring to is we’re at this inflection point where a new rising power is now challenging what has, for a few decades now, been the sole superpower and is no longer the sole superpower. Talk about the city’s trap and those kinds of things. But ultimately, we are returning to a time of great power competition. As you recall from the Cold War or maybe from the Cold War history books, countries made very difficult decisions. The time of the post-war, post-Cold War order is really kind of a historical anomaly, right? I mean, to have a large superpower that basically stood astride the world like Colossus and at the same time made these really odd choices to essentially be a benign imperial power, right? I mean, you can argue that the United States made its mistakes and had its fair share of sins, but for the most part, there was this Pax Americana.
Generally speaking, it was a relatively peaceful time to the extent to which the United States thought maybe we’d reach the end of history and we could just take our post, our peace dividend, stand down our military, and make a lot of money. Unfortunately, the world failed to cooperate. Iraq and Afghanistan kind of sucked a lot of that money away, that peace dividend. Well, I was in both places.
Yeah. Well, you know, so again, the trillions of dollars that should have gone to American infrastructure and investment in our own domestic economy ended up going into wars that didn’t really produce a whole lot despite your best effort. Although I will say, Afghanistan, we didn’t necessarily start that one. No, fair enough. Edwin, we’re going to wrap up with you. Go ahead.
Yeah, this is personal. What I’m worried about, I think a lot of Southeast Asians are worried about, we have this cultural characteristic. When you’re weaker and you get bullied, you shut up. When they keep bullying you, you shut up. But when you come to the red line, you run amok. That’s where the term comes from, amok. Amok is that you just don’t care about anything else. You just fight back, although you know that you might lose. If that kind of thing happens at the grassroots level, it will change the whole calculation and the whole consideration of the situation in a neighborhood.
Taking that to a country level, we’re worried that the Philippines getting bullied all these times comes to a point that no more we are going to run amok on you. Although we know that we will lose in this battle, in this combat indices, we will fight back. We will no longer take this bully. This is what I, looking out there, worry about. If that happens, all the civilians, all the workers, millions of them, all the trades will come to a halt. That’s really worried me. So please help me assess that on this geopolitical level and military level.
Yeah. So I’m not sure if what I’m going to say is going to be that comforting. You know, I’ve been around for a little while. I was in the military, as Eric said, for three and a half decades. Do you know what? The next war never happens the way you think it’s going to. Everybody will be staring at the thing that everybody thinks is going to be the next thing, and it’ll come completely out of left field. It’ll be something that nobody was looking at. The world is just an unpredictable place. Events have this way of befuddling us and taking us completely off stride.
So there will be events over the next 12 months that nobody is looking for. I mean, look at the current thing that we’re all in over tariffs, right? Did anybody have this level of a tariff war on their bingo card? 125% tariffs on China, or is it 150? I’ve lost track. What day of the week is it? I don’t know. My goodness. Events have a way of sort of taking us by surprise. We tend to muddle through a lot of things and then get waylaid by the thing that nobody’s looking at.
Yeah. Well, let’s wrap up just looking forward a little bit. One of the things that we’ve noticed in terms of watching what China’s doing with Taiwan is the level of military engagement has just skyrocketed a lot. Some of the thinking goes that China is making the calculation that if the Americans are not going to back Ukraine, as they’ve promised, even though they’ve spent billions already on Ukraine, and even though there’s partnerships with the Europeans, listening to what Donald Trump has said about Taiwan, and at the same time tariffing Taiwan and raising doubts as to whether or not he would protect Taiwan in the event of a conflict. His pursuit of a deal with China may be more important than anything else.
The Chinese feel they’ve got a lot more room to maneuver, not only in the Taiwan Strait, but possibly in the South China Sea. With that in mind, going forward and watching this divorce between China and the U.S. economically that appears to be happening right now, do you anticipate more military engagement in the South China Sea? I call militaries, the maritime militia, the Coast Guard, and the PLA Navy all wrapped up into one. Or do you think that the Chinese will maybe pull back a little bit because they know that the Americans are distracted and just kind of let this thing run?
How do you look at the next 12 months? I think that things are kind of at a sustainable static point at this point. Even though there are incidents that make the news, they are not nearly as serious as the ones we saw last year. I think that China is beginning to focus very much on Taiwan. But again, I’m not as obviously everybody should be concerned with an invasion. I still think the most likely thing that we would see around Taiwan is an escalation short of armed conflict.
For example, what if we began to see as part of one of these military exercises, China decides to turn around a few LNG ships, liquid natural gas? Taiwan is desperately dependent on imported liquid natural gas that only gets in by ship. That’s the only way to get that stuff. China says, look, I’m sorry, we’re in the middle of an exercise and now we’re going to be turning around your ship. During the process, let’s say their Coast Guard boards a couple of ships, saying, hey, we’re just going to carry out a routine safety inspection for this ship going into Chinese Taipei, as they would call it. We found out that you’re not really meeting standards.
So we’re going to have to look at more ships coming in. All of a sudden, there is an escalation. Is the United States going to act because we’re turning around a few ships? Is anybody else going to act? No, but that turns the screw a little tighter. There’s nothing that’s forcing China to invade right now. There are so many other ways that I think they still think they can get what they want as long as they keep their time horizon a little further out.
You see the Philippines is at this operating level that we’re seeing now. That’s probably going to continue for the foreseeable future unless China sees some need to push the envelope. I don’t see that impulse coming from the Philippine side. I think the Philippines has reached a point where they’re getting their supplies through to Second Thomas Shoal. The battle lines have hardened a little bit, and everybody kind of hunkers down in the trenches. There might be a few sexy pictures from time to time, but nothing that rises to the level of pushing them closer to our conflict.
Okay. Well, just before we go, I’d love for you to give us a little bit of a plug and tell us about the podcast. Why should we care about the Indo-Pacific that you do with Jim? Are you focusing mostly on the Philippines, or is it the entire Indo-Pacific? Tell us a little bit about what you guys are doing there.
So because I know a lot of our listeners are always looking to find new podcasts to add to their playlists. Yeah. You know, we’re having a lot of fun doing it. We do try to take in the entirety of the Indo-Pacific, but, of course, as you know, that is a very, very large place and it’s hard to hit every place. We’ve done a couple of Indonesia episodes. We’re going to be releasing a Vietnam one. We just did one on Japan that we released this week. But then we do topical ones as well. Trade is right at the top of the list right now, but we’ve done them on the South China Sea. We’ve done them on naval buildups and those kinds of things.
We try to cover both topics and countries and specific issues as they come up. We started just over a year ago and we’re currently releasing our episode number 70. Yeah, I mean, it’s been a lot of fun. We’ve got a lot of really interesting guests. One of our most interesting guests was the outgoing ambassador to Japan, Rahm Emanuel. We had a commander of Pacific Air Forces, General Schneider. We’ve had a former prime minister of Australia, Malcolm Turnbull. We get some pretty interesting guests, some of whom have very interesting and provocative opinions.
At the end, we try to tell a story because both Jim and I spent a long time in the military and the foreign service, respectively. It’s amazing how many interesting, illuminating, and sometimes just funny stories come out of spending that much time in public service.
We will put a link to the podcast in the show notes and we’ll also put a link to your Twitter handle and what you’re doing over at Sea Light. Ray Powell is the director of the Sea Light Initiative at Stanford University’s Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation and also the host with Jim Caruso of the Why Should We Care About the Indo-Pacific podcast. Links for all of that will be in the show notes.
Ray, thank you so much for taking the time to join us and to stay up a little bit later to join us on this episode of the China Global South podcast. Thanks, Eric. Thanks, Edwin. It’s been a blast. We’ll be back again next week. So for Edwin in Jakarta, I’m Eric Olander. Thank you so much for listening.
The discussion continues online. Follow the China Global South project on Blue Sky and X, a China GS project, or on YouTube at China Global South and share your thoughts on today’s show. Or head over to our website at ChinaGlobalSouth.com, where you can subscribe to receive full access to more than 5,000 articles and podcasts. Once again, that’s ChinaGlobalSouth.com. We’ll see you next week.
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Eric: Hello and welcome to another edition of the China Global South podcast, a proud member of the Sinica Podcast Network. I’m Eric Olander, and this week I’m joined by CGSP’s Southeast Asia editor, Edwin Bean Shreemo. Good morning to you, Edwin. How are you?
Edwin: Good morning. I’m good. It’s great to have you on the show.
Eric: Today, we’re going to talk about the situation in the South China Sea. This issue has fallen off a lot of people’s radars in recent months due to the ongoing drama surrounding tariffs with the United States and everything happening between the U.S. and China. However, in the past few weeks, there have been significant developments in the South China Sea involving the Philippines and China that we want to update you on today.
Eric: To set the scene, let me give you a brief overview of what’s been happening over the past week or two. Last Sunday, there was another near collision near the Scarborough Shoal between the China Coast Guard and the Philippines Coast Guard. Let’s take a look at how the Philippine media covered this incident.
Speaker: “Another near collision occurred between Philippine and Chinese ships in disputed waters. According to the Philippine Coast Guard, a Chinese Coast Guard vessel engaged in reckless maneuvers, attempting a head-on collision with the PCG’s BRP Cabra near Scarborough Shoal. They stated that the crew’s seamanship skills averted a collision. The PCG also mentioned that the BRP Cabra’s presence pushed the Chinese vessel further away, now approximately 92 to 96 nautical miles off the coast of Kaponis Island.”
Eric: China claims sovereignty over the entire South China Sea, a stance that was rejected by an international tribunal in 2016. What’s noteworthy is that such near collisions were quite frequent last year, often captured in videos shared over social media. The Philippines had originally promoted a Transparency Initiative to document these events, but they have since halted this practice. Consequently, fewer influencers and journalists are on board, leading to fewer reports of these incidents filling up social media. That might explain why some of you may not have heard about these ongoing developments.
Eric: Interestingly, a few days later—on Wednesday of last week—the Chinese issued a statement claiming that the China Coast Guard “allowed and supervised” a Philippine resupply mission to a warship illegally grounded at what they referred to as Renai Reef, known to the Philippines as the Second Thomas Shoal, in the South China Sea.
Edwin: The language in that statement is intriguing because it implies that China believes it has sovereignty over the area. From the Philippine perspective, the BRP Sierra Madre, an old warship grounded on the Second Thomas Shoal, serves as a territorial claim for Manila. While the Philippines acknowledges that the resupply mission occurred without confrontation, they have a vastly different interpretation of the situation.
Eric: By the end of last week, the Chinese Ministry of Defense released another statement criticizing the United States. Senior Colonel Zhang Xiaogang, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of National Defense, said that the U.S. is meddling in the South China Sea, undermining China’s territorial sovereignty and maritime interests while attempting to threaten and coerce China. He added, “This approach will simply not work.”
Edwin: An interesting point in his statement addressed the Philippines, suggesting that relying on foreign support to “make waves at sea” would ultimately backfire, positioning the Philippines as a mere pawn to be used and discarded. They seem to be amplifying the narrative that the Philippines could end up in a similar situation as other nations that have depended on U.S. support.
Eric: Amid all this tension, the Philippines is undergoing unprecedented military expansion. They recently approved a $5.5 billion deal to purchase U.S. F-16s, took delivery of two South Korean warships, and received twenty advanced drones from Australia for the Philippine Coast Guard to enhance their operations, particularly in the South China Sea.
Eric: Edwin, you’ve been closely following these developments, especially regarding the arms deals. What insights can you share about the regional military dynamics?
Edwin: Previously, the Philippines had a weaker military in terms of equipment and hardware, even though its personnel are battle-hardened. Recently, various military purchase requests were approved, including the acquisition of the F-16 Block 70 or 72 and one corvette out of two expected deliveries, alongside high-capacity drones.
Edwin: What’s fascinating is how these new assets will significantly enhance the capabilities of the Philippine military. It’s not just about the fighter jets, corvettes, and drones; it’s how these improvements play into the larger military equations and strategic calculations in the South China Sea, especially regarding Scarborough Shoal and Second Thomas Shoal. I’m eager to see the implications once these assets are operational.
Eric: You’ve posed some critical questions, which lead us to our guest today. Ray Powell is the Director of the Sea Light Initiative at Stanford University’s Gordian Knotts Center for National Security Innovation. He co-hosts the “Why Should We Care About the Indo-Pacific” podcast with Jim Caruso. Ray, thank you for joining us from Northern California this evening.
Ray: Great to be here, gentlemen. Thanks for having me.
Eric: Edwin raised important points regarding the Philippines’ military purchases. With many overlooking the situation in the South China Sea due to larger global issues, what’s your assessment of the current tensions between the Philippines and China?
Ray: When we look back to last summer, things really escalated, particularly around the Second Thomas Shoal with that old warship. There was a dramatic confrontation at that time involving the Chinese Coast Guard and Philippine boats, with harsh injuries resulting. Both sides took a step back post-summer, leading to a curious truce where they each maintained very different narratives about the situation.
Ray: China claims successes regarding resupply constraints while the Philippines insists on its autonomy. Despite these conflicting messages, it seems like a fragile equilibrium has emerged, with resupplies happening every 45 days or so without further escalation. The other significant event last summer was at Sabina Shoal, where a larger Philippine Coast Guard ship anchored for five months in a standoff, ultimately having to leave due to supply constraints—a situation that worked in China’s favor, showcasing its tactical advantages.
Eric: So, while a truce exists at the Second Thomas Shoal, tensions remain in locations like Scarborough Shoal, where encounters persist even at the Coast Guard level?
Ray: Exactly. The agreement applied specifically to the Second Thomas Shoal, where both parties recognized the need for some stability, yet issues around Scarborough Shoal remain unregulated. The access and presence of Philippine ships are continually challenged there, indicating that while a certain uneasy peace exists in some areas, tensions are still ripe in others.
Eric: Returning to that earlier statement from the Chinese Ministry of Defense, the narrative of the Philippines being a pawn is certainly not new. Though, it resonates differently today given regional sentiments about the United States, especially in light of economic uncertainties tied to tariffs.
Ray: Exactly, many in Southeast Asia are feeling the impact of erratic U.S. policy. Alongside these tariffs, concerns over America’s commitment to security relationships, especially for allies like the Philippines, loom large given the disproportionate military strength between China and the Philippines.
Eric: What’s your perspective on the current standing of the United States in this context, and whether the security alliance with the Philippines retains its significance compared to previous administrations?
Ray: It’s chaotic, and honestly, few in Washington fully grasp the dynamics at play. Nevertheless, the Philippines seems to be receiving special attention under the current U.S. administration. They’ve gotten reassurances about ongoing aid and new military collaborations, which have been reinforced through visibility from their Transparency Project.
Eric: Why do you think the Philippines garners special attention? We seldom hear Trump criticize them for not paying their fair share as he does with other allies like Japan and Taiwan.
Ray: I believe it stems from Trump’s historical views on Japan, which date back decades, whereas he doesn’t see the Philippines in that same lens. The Transparency Program has also put the Philippines’ struggles front and center in the media, shaping a favorable perception of them as a nation standing up to a larger power.
Eric: Would you say that the potential for military escalation remains a pressing concern?
Ray: Yes, absolutely. The treaty alliance between the Philippines and the U.S. indeed creates a precarious situation, especially against a nuclear power like China. While I don’t believe China wants to go to war, it does engage in calculated maneuvers that recognize the potential for disaster.
Ray: China often seeks to de-escalate situations favorably for itself while expecting other nations to desire peace even more. However, President Marcos has made it clear that the death of a Philippine sailor would be considered an act of war, signaling a new line in the sand.
Eric: But would the U.S. actually intervene militarily under those circumstances?
Ray: The current political climate in the U.S. creates significant hurdles for any military engagement. The public’s consensus on war, especially over such contested areas, would be hard to achieve. Many believe that the U.S. may not act decisively for the Philippines in the event of a conflict over the South China Sea, unlike situations involving Taiwan or Japan.
Eric: This is a challenging question that doesn’t have a clear answer, yet it’s crucial to understanding these dynamics. Ray: So, when has the United States, in the post-World War II era, ever had to make that determination? It really is an important question. In the end, it’s a political question, as you’ve implied. There’s no court that could … I mean, the Philippines can’t take the United States to civil court and sue it for not honoring its treaty commitment.
Ray: Now, what’s the cost to the United States if it is perceived to have failed to do that? Well, every country on the planet that has a treaty alliance with the U.S. suddenly has to wonder, what is that piece of paper worth, right? That’s what’s literally happening right now, especially given the breakdown of the relationship with Europe.
Ray: The rhetoric has been extremely troublesome, right? To some degree, there is a belief that Donald Trump sees himself as operating in year zero, believing that nothing that happened before really bears on what he does because he didn’t decide it. Previous presidents don’t really matter in this context.
Ray: Yes, it remains a key question. On the flip side, deterrence ultimately depends on the adversary being convinced—or at least having enough doubt in their minds—about whether the U.S. is both willing and able to act on its treaty commitments.
Ray: I still believe that Xi Jinping, deep down, wouldn’t want to test that proposition too far. What I would watch for instead is that he would try to continue actions just below that threshold, in what we call the gray zone, to see how far he can push.
Ray: Consider this: Is the United States really going to do anything if I build a structure at Scarborough Shoal? What if an encounter at sea results in the death of a Philippine sailor? Will the United States really go to war over the death of one sailor? Currently, we’ve been witnessing some dramatic aerial encounters.
Ray: If a Philippine aircraft goes down, I think those scenarios are more likely to lead to a diplomatic crisis rather than a military conflict. From Southeast Asia, when looking out at the South China Sea dispute, the image is that of a larger, muscular figure clashing with a smaller, weaker one.
Ray: The neighboring countries are intervening, urging both parties to manage their disputes without escalating into a physical fight because they know that would be a lost cause for the smaller nation. However, if that smaller nation obtains much more sophisticated weapons and feels entitled to defend itself, things could get complicated.
Ray: That could upset the entire economic security situation in Southeast Asia, especially concerning the millions of Southeast Asians working in countries like South Korea, Japan, and even China. If the Philippines chooses to use those weapons and escalate matters, it could lead to significant turmoil.
Ray: It’s worth considering that wars often begin accidentally or through unforeseen incidents. However, I maintain the impression that neither China nor the Philippines really wants to go to war. In fact, I lean towards a belief that they are both more averse to conflict than inclined to capitulation.
Ray: Ultimately, what I believe China wants is for someone to rise to power, someone after Marcos or after President Lai in Taiwan, who would be more accommodating. They could then say, “If you want to relieve the pressure, you can make a deal on this and that.”
Ray: I think they initially thought they had that with President Duterte and also with President Marcos—surprisingly, Marcos didn’t follow the path they expected.
Ray: It’s also crucial to view things from the Philippines’ perspective, especially regarding ASEAN. The Philippines feels as though ASEAN has abandoned it. Observing the Philippines under pressure, ASEAN provides support to the U.S., Australia, Europe, Canada, and Japan, but says nothing.
Ray: From the viewpoint of the Philippines, they are a member of ASEAN, yet they feel bullied by a larger power within their own exclusive economic zone, receiving no assistance from fellow ASEAN members. While ASEAN may criticize the Philippines for creating trouble, the Philippines insists they aren’t causing it; the trouble has come to them.
Ray: Recently, we spoke with Kang Vu, a Vietnamese political scientist at Boston College, who contrasted China’s responses to Vietnam—engaging in territorial expansion in the South China Sea—with its approach to the Philippines, who is merely defending their existing boundaries.
Ray: He posits that the reaction from China to the Philippines is far more intense, potentially due to U.S. involvement with the Philippines, while the Vietnamese act independently, leading to different responses.
Ray: I found his theory compelling. I spent three years in Vietnam during my time at the U.S. Embassy, particularly through China’s island-building campaign from 2013 to 2016. I recall the Vietnamese looking at us Americans, wondering if we had a plan, and, honestly, we did not.
Ray: It’s more complicated than it appears. There’s also the dynamic of the relationship between the Vietnamese Communist Party and the Chinese Communist Party that plays a role. The fact that the Philippines has a U.S. alliance indeed influences China’s perspective.
Ray: I also think Vietnam has been able to capitalize on this situation since China is preoccupied with the Philippines, thus avoiding strong stances against Vietnam’s island expansions.
Ray: Furthermore, geography has largely worked against the Philippines. Within its own exclusive economic zone, it has a substantial number of reefs, while Vietnam is contending with reefs that lie outside its exclusive economic zone.
Ray: Going back to the ’90s, China laid claim to Mischief Reef located almost in the center of the Philippine exclusive economic zone, placing the Philippines in a challenging situation. In 2012, China effectively took over Scarborough Shoal, further escalating tensions uniquely for the Philippines compared to other claimants.
Ray: Other nations deal with territorial claims that may lie within their coverage, but not necessarily within their exclusive economic zone.
Ray: It’s noteworthy that China performed live-fire exercises on their side of the Gulf of Tonkin to express displeasure towards Vietnam. So, while the Vietnamese aren’t completely off the hook, they have navigated the situation differently.
Ray: I’d like to get your thoughts on a speech by former Singaporean Foreign Minister George Yeo that’s been circulating on social media. Although it addresses Taiwan, the principles presented can be interestingly applied within a Philippine context. Essentially, he argues that in ten years, China will be stronger, suggesting that there’s incentive to negotiate a resolution now since it will become harder later. Eric: Let’s take a listen to what former Foreign Minister George Yeo had to say. After that, Ray, I’d like to hear your thoughts regarding the Philippine context.
George Yeo: If I were Taiwanese, I would consider this: In ten years, China will likely have developed a counter-strike capability against the U.S.
So, while they might not win at a conventional level, the risks at a nuclear level will be too significant.
As a result, the pressure on Taiwan—politically, militarily, and economically—will increase.
Therefore, keeping the status quo is like allowing a ticking bomb to keep ticking. It won’t tick forever.
In ten years, that ticking will be much faster.
Lee Kuan Yew always believed it’s better for Taiwan to negotiate with the mainland sooner rather than later.
The longer one waits, the weaker their negotiating position becomes.
However, some Taiwanese hope that if they wait long enough, a big struggle will happen within the Communist Party, potentially creating an opportunity for Taiwan to escape and achieve independence.
Yet, policies shouldn’t be built on such uncertain possibilities; that approach is too dangerous.
Ray: You’re a military man with 35 years in the U.S. Air Force, and you understand the politics of power.
The Chinese are indeed becoming stronger. As Edwin pointed out, while the Philippines is acquiring weapons, they still fall far short of matching China’s capabilities.
Do you see any parallels between George Yeo’s comments about Taiwan and the situation in the Philippines?
Eric: I have a few thoughts on that. It’s always easy for someone to suggest that another country should negotiate away some of its territory to appease a larger nation.
Imagine if someone told Singapore, in a similar situation, to just make a deal and give away some of its sovereignty to achieve peace.
Moreover, history shows that aggressive expansionist states are rarely satisfied with merely “a little more.”
Consider the actions of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in the 1930s. When you concede some territory, it often doesn’t suffice to quell their appetite.
If you negotiate something away, you must ask what you receive in return.
Is it merely a promise that they’ll be friendly towards you? What did that promise do for Hong Kong?
Hong Kong was guaranteed 50 years of “one country, two systems,” but things have certainly changed in the past five years.
Eric: We also had a former Singaporean diplomat, Bilahari Kaskun, who expressed confusion about why Taiwan isn’t prioritizing its own defense.
This sentiment aligns with the perspective of Elbridge Colby, the newly appointed Undersecretary for Policy at the Pentagon, who asked why Taiwan isn’t spending 10% of its GDP on defense if the threat is as serious as claimed.
So, for the Philippines, it’s similar—anything given away won’t appease the hungry shark. That shark will just come back for more.
Edwin: Let me shift to you, Ray. The Nantuna Islands off Indonesia’s coast are contested between Indonesia and the Philippines. Do you think Indonesia would negotiate to the point of sacrificing the Nantuna Islands, similar to what George Yeo suggests Taiwan should do?
Ray: Not really. As far as I understand, Indonesia doesn’t have any territorial disputes with China. The Nantuna Islands do come up in disputes regarding their exclusive economic zone, but there’s no issue of territorial sovereignty involved.
The problem lies in overlapping exclusive economic zones, where Indonesia has the sovereign right to exploit resources. If China claims otherwise, conflict arises, but it doesn’t escalate to the level of military standoffs.
It’s more of a game of cat and mouse, often involving the Chinese Coast Guard bullying Indonesian research vessels.
Ray: I was in Kuala Lumpur a couple of months ago at a conference, speaking with a Chinese diplomat. I asked him three times if China claims indisputable sovereignty over the five Spratly Islands occupied by Malaysia. Each time, he refused to answer, which we know is because they do claim that sovereignty.
My point to Malaysia was that it will come for you eventually. It’s not your turn yet, but as history shows, when has China ever given up a claim?
It’s easy to advise the Philippines to simply negotiate with China and give up a bit more sovereignty, but then, it could very well become Malaysia’s turn to make those difficult decisions.
Eric: This is a time of great power politics. The U.S. seems to be shifting back into an imperialist approach, discussing acquisitions and deploying troops.
This rhetoric is reminiscent of historical periods where larger powers dominate smaller ones.
This indignation about the Chinese aggression in Southeast Asia reflects the current era we’re in—a time of great power competition, where a new rising power is challenging a superpower no longer holding its previous standing.
Ray: Exactly. The age of post-Cold War order was somewhat of a historical anomaly, where one superpower effectively dictated terms around the globe.
For a time, there was peace, marked by a somewhat benevolent U.S. imperial stance.
However, conflicts like Iraq and Afghanistan drained away resources that might have improved American infrastructure and domestic investment.
Edwin: Look, this is personal for me. I’m worried, and many Southeast Asians share this concern.
Culturally, when people are bullied, they tend to stay quiet. But after enough bullying, there comes a red line, and they might retaliate, even knowing they could lose.
If such grassroots resistance occurs, it would drastically change the dynamics in the region.
Imagine if the Philippines, fed up with bullying, decided to push back. That could throw millions of workers and trade into turmoil. How do you assess this from a geopolitical and military standpoint?
Ray: Well, to ease any worries, I’ll say this: Over the years, I’ve learned that wars often don’t unfold as expected. They’ll occur over something nobody anticipated.
Events can surprise us and shake things up. In 12 months, there will likely be surprises no one has seen coming.
Take the current situation with tariffs—did anyone expect a trade war of this magnitude?
Eric: As we look ahead, we’ve noted a significant increase in China’s military engagement concerning Taiwan. Some speculate that China believes there’s more leeway in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea due to perceived American distractions.
With the current economic divorce between China and the U.S., do you expect more military engagement in the South China Sea?
Ray: Right now, things seem to have settled into a sustainable state. While there are incidents that make headlines, they aren’t as substantial as those from last year.
China is primarily focused on Taiwan, but I believe any potential conflict won’t necessarily involve armed confrontation.
Perhaps, in one of these military exercises, China might just prevent certain ships from entering, creating a situation that escalates without crossing into open conflict.
So it’s likely that the Philippines will continue operating under current circumstances for the foreseeable future.
Eric: Before we wrap up, can you give us a bit of a plug for your podcast, “Why Should We Care About the Indo-Pacific,” with Jim?
Is it primarily focused on the Philippines, or do you cover the entire Indo-Pacific?
Ray: We cover the entire Indo-Pacific, though that’s quite broad. We’ve had episodes focused on various countries like Indonesia and Vietnam, as well as topical discussions on trade and territorial claims.
Over the past year, we’ve released around 70 episodes and had some fascinating guests, including Rahm Emanuel, the former ambassador to Japan, and General Schneider, commander of Pacific Air Forces.
Jim and I strive to weave stories from our experiences in military service and public roles into the discussions.
Eric: We’ll put links to your podcast and your Twitter handle in the show notes. Thank you for joining us today, Ray.
Ray: Thank you, Eric and Edwin. This has been great. We’ll be back next week.
Eric: For Edwin in Jakarta, I’m Eric Olander. Thank you for listening.
The conversation continues online. Follow the China Global South project on Blue Sky, X, or YouTube, and share your thoughts on today’s show. Visit our website at ChinaGlobalSouth.com for access to over 5,000 articles and podcasts. That’s ChinaGlobalSouth.com. Ray: Thank you, Eric and Edwin. This has been great. We’ll be back next week.
Eric: For Edwin in Jakarta, I’m Eric Olander. Thank you for listening.
The conversation continues online. Follow the China Global South project on Blue Sky, X, or YouTube, and share your thoughts on today’s show. Visit our website at ChinaGlobalSouth.com for access to over 5,000 articles and podcasts. That’s ChinaGlobalSouth.com.