Watching with keen interest
Good friend lawyer Elias Espinoza forwarded me a news story of the escalating row between Indonesia and China over the latter country's brazen fishing intrusions into the former's exclusive economic zone waters. I have actually been watching the developments, having previously written several articles about the Philippines' own similar dispute with China, and I am glad others are doing so as well.
As I am writing this, the conflict has been confined to an exchange of words and diplomatic back and forth. There is no telling what the situation will be by the time this sees print Monday, January 6. Let us just hope things do not go beyond that. I do have a feeling that Indonesia is more ready and willing to take its response much further than the Philippines has but will still not actually do so.
For one, Indonesia has far more military muscle than the Philippines. For another, China has far less reason to intrude into Indonesia, it not being a party to the South China Sea dispute involving China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and the Philippines. At least, with these other countries, China can contend, no matter how invalidly and erroneously, that it is merely asserting its claim.
But with Indonesia not being a claimant, with its waters clearly outside the contested area, the Chinese intrusions into Indonesia are clearly violations of its unchallenged sovereignty. How Indonesia deals with the situation is therefore not only interesting, it is instructive. The Philippines can very well learn therefrom.
It is good to learn and watch what Indonesia does because some Filipinos with a misguided sense of patriotism want a firmer Philippine response that can lead to war with China. No less than China president Xi Jinping told his Philippine counterpart Rodrigo Duterte to his face that if push comes to shove, he will go to war. Call Duterte all the nasty names your vocabulary can summon, but to me he had sense enough to push back.
By whatever measure you can think of, there is no way the Philippines can win a war with China. Not only can it not win, it stands to lose more than it already has. It will not only be our soldiers who will die in vain, a lot of our innocent countrymen will as well. Territories will be occupied, properties destroyed or forfeited.
And do not think the United States will shed another drop of American blood in another dirty war, its mutual defense treaty with the Philippines notwithstanding. That treaty, crafted during the Cold War with Russia, had the defense of America in mind, not the Philippines. The closest thing the US will do to help the Philippines is provide war materiel. But it will still shove the Filipino soldier to fight and die in its own war.
My gut feeling about this Indonesia-China row is that after expending passions, Joko Widodo, like Duterte, will realize peace is always better than war. China will pull back and wait for the next opportunity to strike. This is the new normal in these parts. As I have always said before, it has always been about fish for 1.3 billion Chinese mouths. The experts harp about oil and gas deposits. To me, nothing fuels madness more than hunger.
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