South China Sea: China takes on its neighbors

We’ve had it with Chinese aggression, said Tra Son in the Vietnamese Thanh Nien Daily. Over the past few years, Chinese incursions in our waters of the East Sea—which China calls the South China Sea—have become ever more brazen. Chinese boats have attacked dozens of Vietnamese fishing boats, sometimes extorting ruinous ransoms from them, other times actually sinking them. Until now, Vietnam has “refrained from bold reactions,” but China has “disrespected and abused our restraint.” Last month, a Chinese boat cut the cables of a state-owned Vietnamese ship conducting oil exploration—and we captured the whole thing on film. To avenge this “injury caused to our people’s dignity,” Vietnam is now conducting live-fire drills in our territorial waters.

Military exercises? Is that really where you want to go with this? asked the Chinese Global Times in an editorial. Far be it from China to try to bully such a weak neighbor. But when a small country “tries to blackmail China, the Chinese people will on the one hand feel rather angry, while on the other hand find it quite amusing.” Vietnam’s behavior is simply childish. Exploring for oil in waters that are clearly Chinese territory is bad enough, but the chest-beating—from a country that was once invaded by China—is ridiculous. “If Vietnam insists on making trouble, thinking that the more trouble it makes, the more benefits it gains, then we truly wish to remind those who determine policy in Vietnam to please read your history.”

China is being extremely intimidating, said Aytch S. de la Cruz in the Philippine Daily Tribune. Philippine fishing boats and oil exploration vehicles have also been harassed in the South China Sea, and the Philippine-Chinese dispute there is growing “increasingly tense.” China has even put up posts and a buoy in the Spratly Islands, which we claim as our own. It’s not surprising that China feels it can do as it pleases, given that its military might is so much greater than that of all other claimants to the waters, including the Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam, and Brunei. No wonder President Benigno Aquino III “ran to the side of the United States to seek succor.” After announcing that the Philippines would henceforth call the South China Sea the West Philippine Sea, Aquino practically threatened China with U.S. naval might, saying, “Perhaps the presence of our treaty partners, the United States of America, ensures that all of us will have freedom of navigation.”

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Good luck with that, said the Philippine Daily Inquirer. The U.S. has “made it clear it’s siding with neither.” A U.S. Embassy spokesperson said bluntly that the U.S. does not intervene in regional territorial disputes. In effect, of course, U.S. neutrality means it is tacitly endorsing China’s claims. It looks like U.S. need for trade with China outweighs historic ties of friendship. “America’s seeming reluctance to put its foot down on China’s bullying of the Philippines, a former colony and an ally, may yet be a sign of things to come.”