Beijing would antagonize Filipinos by setting conditions on their fishing in Scarborough Shoal. President Rodrigo Duterte, in striving to mend frayed ties with the giant neighbor, is unlikely to take that lightly. China’s wooing of the Philippines from military closeness to the United States would be wasted.
Restrictions mean China won’t stop bullying the Philippines, and embarrassing their President would turn Filipinos farther away. More so since Duterte, currently visiting China, humbly is asking Beijing to let his poor countrymen share in the shoal’s fish bounty as before.
Beijing political hawks reportedly want top communist leaders to humiliate the Philippines by subjecting Scarborough to conditions. Foremost is for Manila to concede territorial sovereignty to Beijing. But Duterte cannot do that without risking impeachment, he acknowledges. Only 123 miles from Zambales but 900 miles from China’s nearest coast, Scarborough faces Subic Bay where the US Navy berths under a military pact with Manila. Beijing deems the shoal strategic in facing off with America in the South China Sea, and is planning to build its own naval facility there. Before setting off for China, Duterte tried to please his Beijing hosts by announcing the end of joint naval patrols and military exercises with America.
Another Scarborough restriction would be for Filipinos to fish only outside, as the huge horseshoe-shaped shoal is overfished. Wu Shicun, head of China’s National Institute for South China Sea Studies, stated that in a recent interview. Ironically, it was Chinese destructive fishing that triggered tensions with Manila in the summer of 2012. More than six dozen Hainanese vessels were hauling in endangered sea turtles, giant clams, and fan corals, prompting the dispatch of Philippine patrols. Chinese warships came to the poachers’ rescue, and have since roped off the shoal from Filipinos.
Scarborough, well within the Philippines’ 200-miles exclusive economic zone, is traditional Filipino fishing ground. Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, it is the Philippines that must set fishing restrictions for marine conservation and maritime safety. China’s occupation incited demonstrations of Filipinos in world capitals, and a victorious arbitration at The Hague. If Beijing considered the case filing an affront, then more so the outcome last July. The UN court ruled that China’s territorial claim over most of the South China Sea was spurious and illegal. China also broke international law in barring Filipino fishers, and in building artificial island-fortresses in other reefs within the Philippine EEZ. Since the ruling declared Scarborough as a traditional fishing ground of other nationals as well, it is all the more the duty of Manila to conserve the shoal’s resources for future generations.
A recent poll showed 76 percent of Filipinos overwhelmingly trusting America, with only 22 percent for China. Yet, as they also are mostly satisfied with Duterte, Filipinos are going along with his pivot from America to China – but only to tolerable limits.
China’s grab of Scarborough has been likened to a bully neighbor barging into and squatting on a Filipino home. Filipinos, accepting their lack of military firepower, accommodated the trespasser as also in need of food. But Beijing’s setting of conditions on Scarborough is like the bully now restricting the homeowners’ access to their dwelling.
Filipinos also are disappointed with America’s weak response towards China’s bullying, while constantly claiming that its military alliance with Manila is ironclad. Thus they are willing to try out China’s economic offers for closer ties. But should China mess it up with insulting conditions for fishing in their own waters, Filipinos readily would return to the US side. After all, it’s the devil they know.
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