Retaliation by proxy

A Reuters photo carried by the Philippine Star on its front page yesterday gave me a sense of no small exhilaration. In that photo, a Chinese marine surveillance ship is shown being flanked by two Japanese Coast Guard vessels.

Tensions between China and Japan have recently escalated following the purchase by Japan of several islands that China also claims. In the photo, the Chinese ship reportedly intruded into Japanese waters when accosted.

I am no war freak. My exhilaration does not stem from a desire to see a clash between the ships of the two countries. I am exhilarated because, finally, a Chinese ship has figured in an incident in which the other party constituted the superior force.

I am exhilarated because I have grown tired of seeing pictures and television footages of Philippine fishing vessels being shooed away from our own fishing grounds by intruding Chinese marine surveillance vessels similar to the one in the photo with our own Navy unable to step in.

That is because we have no Navy to speak of in the real sense. The flagship of our Navy, the BRP Gregorio del Pilar, is not the warship that our government insists on calling it. It is a Coast Guard cutter donated by the United States.

In fact, it is this official delusion about the Gregorio del Pilar that actually started the current crisis with China over several islets and rocky outcrops within Philippine territory that China, with the effrontery of a superior force, also claims as its own.

Remember that because of this long-standing interlocking claims among China, Vietnam, Taiwan, the Philippines, Brunei and Malaysia, the records are full of arrests and detentions of fishermen from one country or another who stray into the others’ territorial waters.

In other words, it is no strange occurrence for, say, Chinese fishermen to be arrested by Philippine authorities, as what in fact happened earlier this year. Under normal circumstances, these incidents don’t cause a crisis such as we see now. All sides expect these things to happen.

But in that particular incident earlier this year, our gung-ho officials, itching to put into action our warship-that-is-not-a-warship, sent the Navy’s Gregorio del Pilar to arrest some Chinese poachers.

Poaching is a law-enforcement matter that is up to the Maritime Police or the Coast Guard to address. You do not send a “warship” to do it. By sending a “warship” the Philippines sent the wrong signal to China. To Chinese eyes the action constituted not law enforcement but aggression.

So China responded not just in kind but even more. It has started stationing Navy vessels within our territories, virtually occupying them. Alas, we can only watch from afar. We do not have the means, like the Japanese have in the above-mentioned photo, to react with conviction.

It provides scant comfort that the United States, more out of its own interests in the region than as an act of support for an embattled friend, began sending its Navy to Philippine shores for a little showcase warning.

But the truth of the matter is, the United States cannot respond unilaterally on our behalf unless maybe we got attacked first. But China knows better than to attack us. And why would it attack us when there is nothing to attack.

Instead, China just takes what it wants while all that we can do is watch in anguish. And that is why I am exhilarated when somebody else like Japan is able to put China in its place. Never mind if Japan is doing it for its own behalf and not for us. It feels good just the same.

China is not after mineral deposits in the South China Sea but the fishing resources it provides. With 1.3 billion mouths to feed, China’s aggressiveness is about food. Unfortunately for it, the South China Sea is too small a pond to be surrounded by too many enemies.