Last year, an Australian P-8 Poseidon surveillance aircraft was forced to dodge a Chinese fighter that had dumped a load of metal foil in its path.
Now Canberra’s set to up the tempo of its South China Sea patrols to help the Philippines stand against Beijing’s escalating aggression.
The list of incidents continues to grow.
A Chinese Coast Guard vessel flashed a military-grade laser at a Philippine patrol vessel during a confrontation earlier at Scarborough Shoal this month. Several sailors reportedly suffered temporary blindness. Beijing insists it didn’t happen.
But its fishing militia and coast guard continues to swarm sandbanks and reefs within the Philippines’ UN-defined exclusive economic zone. And they’re attempting to force out all other occupants.
Now Manila is appealing for help.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. laments that the tense territorial situation “keeps you up at night, keeps you up in the day, keeps you up most of the time. … It’s very dynamic. It’s constantly in flux, so you have to pay attention to it.”
Such “harassment” was “depriving the Philippines of the use of our exclusive economic zone”, Philippines Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo warned at the weekend. “On a day-to-day basis, there are still many events occurring in the South China Sea.”
When the US Defence Secretary visited the Philippines earlier this month, he promised joint patrols and an increased military presence in the region.
On Wednesday, Australian Defence Minster Richard Marles promised more of the same after talks with his counterpart Carlito Galvez Jr.
“We did talk today about the possibility of exploring joint patrols. We will continue that work, and we hope that comes to fruition soon,” Mr Marles told a media conference. “As countries which are committed to the global rules-based order, it is natural that we should think about ways in which we can co-operate in this respect.”
The development comes as no surprise to many international affairs analysts.
“Although low profile, the Australia-Philippines defence relationship has surprising depth and potential,” says International Institute for Strategic Studies senior fellow Euan Graham.
Pacific enforcers
“We did talk today about the possibility of exploring joint patrols, and we will continue that work, and we hope that that comes to fruition soon,” Mr Marles said, without going into specifics about what this would entail.
But it’s not the first time Australian and Philippine forces have worked together.
The RAAF has conducted occasional surveillance flights over the South China Sea from Philippines bases since at least 2017.
But military ties between the two nations date back to 1922. And Australian warships and troops contributed to the liberation of the archipelago from Japanese forces in World War II.
Now Canberra joins Washington as the only two governments from which Manila allows military visits.
The Philippines and Australia hold regular joint military exercises and frequent high-level meetings between officials. Over the past decade, Canberra has donated five landing craft to help Manila patrol its waters. And counter-terrorism training and tactical exercises have been underway since the turn of the century.
But Manila is poorly equipped to counter China’s assertions over its many distant shoals and sandbanks.
A Philippine Coast Guard aerial patrol observed at least 26 Chinese vessels anchored in and around Sabina Shoal earlier this week. Four more were seen at Ayungin, and a Chinese Coast Guard vessel was maintaining station on the grounded landing ship the Philippines used as a military outpost there.
The flight ordered the Chinese vessels to leave. “Suspected [militia] vessels were directed to immediately depart the Philippine EEZ and were warned that they were not authorised to loiter or swarm these shoals,” a Coast Guard statement reads.
It has limited capability to back up the directive.
That may be about to change.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said during a visit to Manila this month that Washington also intended to carry out joint patrols with Manila as part of a “commitment to bolstering the Philippines’ defence capabilities and capacity to resist coercion as the allies develop a security-sector assistance road map”.
At the same time, it was announced US forces would be allowed to rotate through an additional four military bases in addition to the five it already has access to.
“I truly believe that the future lies in strong alliances and in a united front in promoting again the values that we consider important to our countries,” added Mr Marcos.
Goliath looms
China has effectively encircled the Philippines-administered Thitu (Pag-asa) Island with hundreds of militia boats.
And one of its island fortresses sits within view. Its Coast Guard has been authorised to fire on non-Chinese vessels anywhere in the South China Sea.
And the mooring of more than 200 Chinese “fishing” militia boats at Whitsun Reef early last year triggered fear among the Philippine people, says RAND Corp analyst Derek Grossman.
“The Philippines is stuck in these patrols’ crosshairs, with key targets being Second Thomas Shoal and Thitu Island as well as Scarborough Shoal, which Manila lost to Beijing in 2012,” he said.
This has prompted security talks between Manila and Tokyo. “It will also be geostrategically important to see what the Philippines does with other US security allies, particularly Australia and South Korea,” Mr Grossman adds.
The Southeast Asian country’s EEZ is defined by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. This was confirmed by a 2016 Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling where it rejected China’s claim to historical territorial rights as “baseless”.
Beijing rejected the ruling.
Instead, it completed its internationally outlawed campaign of turning reefs and shoals into artificial island fortresses from which it could assert its military power.
“It is these challenges which the Philippines and other countries in our region face, especially those who have claims also in the South China Sea. So more or less, that is the daily situation that we face,” says Mr Manalo.
“Our hope is that the international community, in the context of affirming the need for a rules-based order, would understand our position and help us and support not only the Philippines and other countries in ensuring that we have adherence to a rules-based order in the South China Sea.”
It’s a hope Mr Marles sought to satisfy.
“We’re both countries who are deeply invested in asserting the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea throughout the world, in places like the South China Sea where most of Australia’s trade traverses,” he said.
Nine dashes and red lines
“When we look at the situation in the area, especially the tensions in the Taiwan Strait, we can see that just by our geographical location, should there in fact be conflict in that area … it’s very hard to imagine a scenario where the Philippines will not somehow get involved,” Mr Marcos observed recently.
Dr Graham agrees.
“In the worst case, China could occupy Philippine islands in the Bashi Channel or even parts of northern Luzon, to deny the use of adjacent territory to the US or its use as a safe haven for Taiwan’s armed forces,” he writes.
“Fighting could spread to the South China Sea proper, including China’s artificial island bases, one of which – Mischief Reef – sits within the Philippine exclusive economic zone.”
China insists it’s all its own territory anyway.
Almost all of the Philippines’ territorial waters in the South China Sea fall within Beijing’s ‘nine-dash line’ “historical” claim to what represents the majority of the South China Sea.
The Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam and Indonesia reject this assertion. At least as much as it affects them individually.
Taiwan makes the same claim as China but is yet to show any inclination to use force to assert ownership.
Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, who visited Jakarta on Wednesday, said Beijing would work with ASEAN to validate its claims.
“China and Indonesia will work with other ASEAN countries to … accelerate consultations on a code of conduct in the South China Sea, and jointly maintain the peace and stability in the South China Sea fully and effectively,” he said.
The secret talks between China and the 10-nation pact have been deadlocked over the future of the strategic waterway for the past two decades. But China wants the dispute resolved only among its Asian participants.