‘Gutter-level’ talk: China-Philippines discord deepens over Taiwan

A. Anantha Lakshmi in Hong Kong and Kathrin Hille in Taipei FEBRUARY 1 2024

Ferdinand Marcos Jr has strengthened resistance to Beijing’s assertive tactics in South China Sea

After Taiwan’s presidential election last month, China was quick to rebuke the countries that congratulated the winner, Lai Ching-te, who Beijing has labelled a separatist.

But it reserved its strongest condemnation for the Philippines, admonishing the country “not to play with fire” and its president to “read more books” to understand the dispute over Taiwan — comments Manila described as “low and gutter-level” talk.

The bitter exchange marked the latest episode in an escalating dispute between China and the Philippines, which has taken a more assertive stance under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr against Beijing’s coercive actions in the disputed waters of the South China Sea.

“Marcos is demonstrating that he is not interested in just kowtowing to Beijing,” said Jay Batongbacal, director of the University of the Philippines Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea.

The Chinese reaction was perceived as disparaging in the Philippines, he added. “That’s not improving the state of relations at all.”

The latest fracas over Taiwan follows increasingly aggressive Chinese activity over the past year in territories claimed by Manila. Experts said upcoming Senate elections in the Philippines — where public opinion has turned against China — could lead to more provocative rhetoric that further fuels tensions.

China claims almost the entirety of the South China Sea, and has rejected a 2016 arbitration tribunal that dismissed those claims under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Instead, its coastguard and maritime militia vessels have stepped up confrontational tactics, attempting to block Philippine resupply missions, in particular around the Second Thomas Shoal, ramming ships and using a water cannon and laser against Philippine sailors.

Analysts cautioned that Marcos was not necessarily formally hardening Manila’s policy. But the firmer stance had emerged in response to a “steady trendline of Chinese threats and bullying” since late 2022, said one foreign diplomat in Manila.

In an interview with the Financial Times at the World Economic Forum in Davos last year, Marcos, who is the son of the late autocrat Ferdinand Marcos, said his country “must respond somehow” to incidents of Chinese intimidation.

Analysts and security officials described Marcos’s visit to China a year ago as a moment of disillusionment that triggered the shift. During the trip, China coastguard vessels stopped Philippine boats in the South China Sea.

“While he was talking with [Chinese leader] Xi Jinping, something very different was happening on the ground,” said Renato Cruz De Castro, an international relations professor at De La Salle University in Manila.

Shortly thereafter, Marcos backed a resumption of joint patrols with the US in the South China Sea and approved access for US forces to four additional Philippine military bases, over-ruling some government officials who warned that such a move could damage relations with China.

Beijing denounced the decision at the time, fiercely objecting in particular to the choice of three bases in the northern Philippines, close to Taiwan.

The Marcos administration has also publicised Chinese behaviour in the South China Sea by taking journalists on coastguard patrols and publishing footage of Chinese harassment of Philippine ships.

The trip marked a “turning point” towards a new policy of transparency “to tell the world that regardless of our diplomatic effort and even the visit of our president, we experienced harassment of the Filipino fishermen and the Philippine coastguard has been a victim of military grade laser”, said Jay Tarriela, a spokesperson for the Philippine coastguard.

A growing wave of anti-China public opinion in the Philippines could lead to a deterioration of relations ahead of the Senate polls next year, with another foreign diplomat in Manila warning rhetoric was becoming “emotive and politically motivated”.

A survey published last month by OCTA Research showed more than 70 per cent of Filipinos believe Manila should assert the country’s territorial rights in the South China Sea, including through military action such as naval patrols and troop presence.

“This survey shows the anger of the Filipino people, that they even think military option as a right policy action to respond to China,” said Tarriela. “The Filipino people are already tired of the bullying behaviour of China.”

The Philippines has moved to strengthen military ties with Japan, Australia, South Korea and France, and on Tuesday agreed to increase coastguard co-operation in the South China Sea with Vietnam, which has also contested China’s claims in the region. In a sign of its growing regional clout, Marcos is set to deliver the keynote address this year at the Shangri-La Dialogue, the landmark Asian security forum in Singapore.

But the Philippines has also made efforts to de-escalate tensions with Beijing, repeatedly reiterating its “one-China” policy.

Since Marcos’s congratulatory message to Lai, in which he said he looked “forward to close collaboration” on “strengthening mutual interests” and “fostering peace”, he has clarified that his government does not endorse Taiwanese independence and called it “a province of China”.

The sides have also agreed to lower tensions over disputes in the South China Sea, but Philippine officials have continued to criticise Beijing.

Aries Arugay, a visiting senior fellow at the Iseas-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, said tensions between the two countries would continue as China “doubles down” on the Philippines.

Short of toeing Beijing’s line on the South China Sea, “there is nothing that Marcos or his administration can do at this moment that will not get a negative reaction from China”.

Speaking at his Senate confirmation hearing to become the next head of US Indo-Pacific command, Admiral Samuel Paparo on Thursday said the Philippines was “under intense pressure with aggression against their sovereign rights” in their exclusive economic zone, in a reference to China.

“Because the Philippines are a sovereign partner, our charge is to be ready to come to their aid as they desire as they navigate that problem along with us, for them to know that we have their back at all times,” Paparo said. “We’ve got capability that is ready to assist them in their defence of their lawful claims, and they’re not claims, they are rights and they are settled in law.”

Separately, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan this week said Washington would respond if China continued with “provocations” in the South China Sea and other parts of the Indo-Pacific.

“We’ll work closely with allies and partners to push back and speak out about the risks to peace and stability in the world’s most important waterways,” Sullivan told the UC San Diego Forum on US-China Relations.

Additional reporting by Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington

This article was originally published by the Financial Times.