(Editor's note: Jose Antonio A. Custodio is a security and defense consultant and was a technical adviser for a US defense company working for the US Pacific Command. He also specializes in military history and has post-graduate studies in history from the University of the Philippines. He also teaches history and political science at several universities in Metro Manila.)
Recently, a Chinese general, Major General Zhang Zhaozhong spoke about a cabbage strategy which called for layers of defenses in Chinese claims at the West Philippine Sea which would be set up following the ouster of Philippine presence in the area. What does this mean for Philippine defense?
The China’s strategy for the area of which the shoals play a very important role is to provide a capability for the Chinese to interdict Philippine lines of communication between metropolitan Philippines and its garrisons at the WPS. Philippine supply runs to and from the KIG will be put to an end through a series of intimidations and threats ranging from statements coming from Beijing to harassments by People’s Liberation Army Navy and Chinese Marine Surveillance/Fisheries Law Enforcement Command vessels of the Philippine Navy, Philippine Coast Guard, and civilian vessels.
If China manages to secure Ayungin Shoal, it will be a dagger pointed at both the garrisons at the KIG and at military and civilian installations at Palawan itself. The construction of a Chinese garrison at Ayungin will provide them with a means to effectively restrict Philippine vessels to Palawan’s immediate coasts and interfere with freedom of navigation there as Beijing will naturally project 200 nautical miles from it toward the Philippines as part of its own definition of an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
Worse is what a Chinese presence at Bajo de Masinloc represents for the Philippines. Although Manila simply saw that shoal as either a fishing area or even as a former training area of the Americans during the time of the bases, what it failed to realize is that this maritime geographic feature is a threat toward the centers of gravity of the Philippines.
Consider that the shoal is a mere 124 nautical miles away from Subic, Zambales, which is a major economic and military hub of the Philippines. It is also near Clark Airport and Metro Manila with its extensive transport hubs as well as being the capital of the Philippines. What will stop the Chinese from using Bajo de Masinloc as a forward operating base to initially monitor Philippine movements, contain them eventually, and even threaten them through the deployment of area denial missiles once structures are built there?
Although Bajo de Masinloc in Chinese hands serves to threaten the global commons in terms of commerce and freedom of navigation, it has an even more sinister role in threatening the political and economic centers of gravity of the Philippines itself.
What is to be done?
Ayungin Shoal should be seen by the Philippines as the proverbial line in the sand. There should be no retreat. Ayungin must not be given up as it will lead to making the Kalayaan Island Group untenable. Doing so will also lead to demoralization in the Philippine military and subsequent loss of national will to defend if the government continues to resort to withdrawing in the face of Chinese pressure. Despite the boasts of the Chinese general, China has no answer to outposts of the Philippines although it may harass ships.
The Philippines is not Vietnam and the incident between Vietnamese and Chinese vessels in the late 1980s cannot be used as a basis to fear Beijing’s deployments and threats in the WPS. Vietnam was in isolation during the 1980s and the Philippines today is not diplomatically isolated and in fact enjoys good standing in the international community and has a robust military alliance with the United States. Although these two things will not deter the Chinese from making provocative and threatening moves, they will still prevent them from taking direct military action such as sinking a Philippine ship since this will definitely bring in the Americans and perhaps other nations in full force in the area.
At this point in time China is not in a position to match the US ship for ship and aircraft for aircraft and it will still need at least a generation to become the equal of the Americans if that will even happen given the current emerging problems in the Chinese economy.
In contrast, the US military is not expected to lose its dominance anytime soon while at the same time it has a long tradition in deploying assets to keep conflicts from spiraling out of control such as in the Persian Gulf deployments in the 1980s and the Balkans in the 1990s. More importantly, the US military has had continuous military experience in both conventional and unconventional wars and in contrast, the last time the Chinese military was used in a large scale operation was to crush defenseless students and civilians at Tiananmen Square in 1989.
China however may try to starve out the Ayungin garrison by increasingly interfering with supply runs of the Philippines. In this confrontation, although Manila is pushing through with the arbitration case, it will count for nothing in the current effort to supply and maintain the KIG garrisons and thus, the Philippines cannot rely on the international community to provide vessels to support the PN’s supply runs. It has to do this alone and hence it has to maintain the commitment of assets to that area and not back down even if the Chinese issue warnings and threaten Armageddon against Manila.
On the matter of Bajo de Masinloc/Scarborough Shoal, it must not be allowed by Manila to turn into a dagger pointing at the throat of the Philippines given its proximity to its centers of gravity in Luzon such as the capital city, airports and ports in the National Capital Region and Central Luzon. Any military officer versed in military affairs would find that easy to discern not unless he specialized in business administration.
Eventually Manila must muster the political will and courage to steam back to that shoal and face off once again with the Chinese and frustrate what they are doing there. What China is doing to the Philippines at Ayungin must be done by Manila to the Chinese at Bajo de Masinloc. China will not withdraw there even if there is a favorable ruling for the Philippines from the international tribunal on the arbitration case.
Fortunately, Beijing cannot hope to control the entire Bajo de Masinloc as it is the size of Quezon City, and hence, although Chinese vessels may be present in some areas, Philippine vessels may choose to deploy in other parts of the shoal to protect Filipino fishermen who have been displaced by China’s territorial grab.
Creating credible deterrence
As the buildup of assets for the PLA Navy and PLA Air Force continues at full pace brought about by single-minded determination and focus in Beijing, the Philippines still deliberates as to what vessel to purchase and frequently finds itself hampered by the restrictive regulations on equipment purchases which itself had been brought about by earlier cases of corruption in the Philippine military. Progress in purchases has been travelling at the speed of a snail on depressants that most of the major acquisitions realized during the current administration had already been discussed and planned for during the previous one.
As can also be seen in the State of the Nation Address of the Aquino administration last 22 July 2013, when the President compared the cost of purchasing a jet fighter fleet at 37.92 billion pesos to the same amount that can build more than 100,000 houses, there is still that guns and butter debate that Philippine policy makers frequently resort to without really understanding the availability of resources in government and in the private sector.
Just as an example, a single individual stands accused of allegedly pilfering 10 billion pesos or almost one-fourth of the stated price for a fighter jet fleet from the pork barrel funds of the Philippine Congress.
Also, many government units from national and local levels frequently resort to wasting funds on unnecessary projects such as repaving roads that have no damage at all just so that such money is not returned to the Treasury and to protect their subsequent budget allocations from decreasing.
Furthermore, investment in defense modernization allows the country to have the will and capability to protect its maritime interests that are worth hundreds of billions of pesos of gas fields and renewable aquamarine resources. Thus the issue of the Philippines being allegedly a poor country is conveniently used as an excuse to cover up for financial mismanagement and shortsighted practices in the national and local bureaucracies.
Anyone observing the manner in which the Philippines addresses its external threats will notice that the capabilities or the abject lack thereof of the AFP in external defense is the determining factor in influencing government policy to utilize diplomacy. However, diplomacy has its limitations especially if the other side, in this case China, refuses to discuss with the Philippines unless Manila recognizes first Beijing’s sovereignty over the entire South China Sea which is something no self-respecting country will do.
Thus, for Philippine initiatives to be truly effective in the WPS issue, it must be backed up by the necessary military muscle to provide the confidence to policy makers to craft more decisive measures against foreign intrusion.
Hence, if the Philippine government resorts to piecemeal acquisitions of military hardware it then creates the situation that it will realize that these very acquisitions are not enough and still resort to tasking the Department of Foreign Affairs with the mission of external defense as Manila will still not have the confidence to commit defense and security assets to protect maritime interests. The end of which will see China gobble up more pieces of Philippine maritime territory and Filipinos losing access to billions of pesos worth of economic resources and critically strategic areas.
The Philippine government must immediately pursue acquiring capabilities that will make the Chinese think twice and Filipino policymakers must realize that such purchases are very possible and will not cause economic bankruptcy or are futile because it will create the necessary confidence in government in the military’s ability to protect the country as well as also staving off defeatist attitudes.
Though the current track of the DFA is correct in establishing an international consensus and alliance against China’s behavior and actions in the WPS, it cannot be the sole strategy of the Philippine government. International opinion is quite fickle and even though countries like India and Japan have expressed concern in the WPS and the South China Sea, as long as there is no formal alliance binding Manila, Tokyo, New Delhi, Hanoi, and all other countries against Chinese hegemony similar to a North Atlantic Treaty Organization, then the sustainability and cohesiveness of such an international consensus is suspect. As an example, if ASEAN cannot seem to speak with one voice over the South China Sea and WPS, what more of such an amorphous international consensus?
This then makes it important for the capabilities of the PN and the PAF to be prioritized and also fast-tracked. This is because the 2013 SONA will be interpreted by the Chinese government as a cop-out by the Philippines in modernizing the AFP and instead relying on an informal and formal international consensus. It will be expected that China will attempt to drive a wedge between the Philippines and those in the international community that the Philippine government is banking on to side with Manila. As Manila is always in doubt about US guarantees to live up to the Mutual Defense Treaty, it will not take too much effort for China to create an image to the Philippines that the international support that Manila is attempting to establish may not be as reliable as it hopes it to be.
Also these other governments might have a shift in policy if their political leadership changes. Hence, the Philippine government, even though it pursues a policy to internationalize the issue, must resolutely prepare to initially go on it alone with its own resources at the WPS.
The mistake of previous administrations that had wasted 15 years since Mischief Reef must not be repeated this time around as the Philippines is fast running out of time to face the largest territorial grab in modern history since the end of Second World War.
