Put up or shut up

I am greatly dismayed and disappointed by the Philippine response to continued Chinese aggression and bullying even in areas in the South China Sea that are not in dispute but clearly within our territorial jurisdiction and sovereignty.

It is bad enough that the Philippines has decided against filing a protest in connection with the stranding of a Chinese warship at the Hasa-Hasa Shoal less than a hundred kilometers off Palawan, it is worse when it is we who would provide the Chinese its alibi.

I was truly aghast when the Philippines said the stranding of the Chinese Navy frigate on our shoal was “an accident.” Maybe the actual stranding was an accident but its being inside our territory was by no means accidental.

I know we do not have the means to engage China in a shooting war. And I am not suggesting that we should do so. But the level of provocations by China has reached a point where we are left with no choice but to either put up or shut up.

In other words, as China makes a global spectacle of our helplessness as it continues to step on our toes, our continued whimpering and protesting in response only serves to reassert China’s dominance. China is actually playing us to shore up its own image.

And don’t ever believe the image of being a bully would bother China. It is impervious to negative perceptions. Had it bothered China, it would have stopped bullying long ago. Instead, China sucks on the image of being a bully to nourish its projection of strength.

So, it’s either we stand up to China even if only with kitchen knives in hand, or plain shut up and sulk. To continue whining and protesting only reduces our dignity by painful degrees. If we cannot protect our interests, then give them up. We cannot rely on others to stand for us.

The Philippines is so fond of hitching its star to that of the United States, forgetting that before the US raises a finger on our behalf, it has to make sure first that doing so does not run counter to its own interests.

In other words, no matter how long-standing global alliances are, the only thing that still matters first and foremost to an individual country is its own interests. When it is not to a country’s interest to keep sustaining an alliance, it is the alliance that will be sacrificed.

Remember the war on terror? When it became inimical to its own interests to sustain and absorb the body counts, many of the allies of the US, including Great Britain and France, either pulled out or scaled down its troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.

I do not think the US will think differently as far as the Philippine standoff with China is concerned. In fact, even to this day, the US has refused to make express commitments to come to the defense of the Philippines in case of Chinese attack.

The best the United States has promised on our behalf is that it will help us arm ourselves. There can be no clearer indication of where the US stands than that. It means that we will have to fight our wars ourselves, the only difference being we will be using US arms.

But what is clear is that no matter how substantial US military aid will be, it will still not be enough to deter China. And the reason China is not deterred is because it knows the US has long lost the balls when it comes to the Chinese question.

The Chinese are very adept in reading signs. And it has long been testing the US, if for no other reason than to measure its responses and understand why it made them. China actually has the US by the balls without the gullible US knowing it. And that places us nowhere.