WASHINGTON — South Korea and India have joined the U.S., Japan and European countries in supporting the Philippines in its maritime disputes with Beijing in the South China Sea, as China’s recent use of water cannon against a Philippine resupply ship creates a global backlash.
U.S. President Joe Biden convened a historic three-way summit with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol at Camp David on Friday.
While public attention was focused on the leaders’ response to missile launches by North Korea, and China’s aggressive posture toward Taiwan, China’s growing hold on the South China Sea was a topic of discussion among the participants.
One jointly published document titled, “The Spirit of Camp David” noted the three countries supported a ruling against China’s expansive maritime claims in the South China Sea by an international tribunal in The Hague in 2016. The tribunal rejected China’s claim that it has historical territorial rights within the so-called nine-dash line in the strategic waterway.
With China’s unsafe maneuvers near Philippine vessels in mind, the document noted, “[W]e strongly oppose any unilateral attempts to change the status quo in the waters of the Indo-Pacific.” The tribunal’s ruling “sets out the legal basis for the peaceful resolution of maritime conflicts between the parties to that proceeding,” it added.
Gregory Poling, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for the Strategic and International Studies, posted on X, formerly Twitter, “The joint statement from today’s Camp David meeting includes [South Korea]’s 1st ever public (albeit tortured) support for the SCS arbitration award.”
South Korea’s firmer stance on China reflects a more outward looking foreign policy that extends beyond Korean Peninsula. Yoon pledged to work with the U.S. and Japan to provide maritime security assistance to Southeast Asian countries during a joint news conference after the summit.
“Respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity, the peaceful settlement of disputes ,among others, undergird a rules-based international order that we resolve to safeguard by intensifying our collaboration,” Yoon said.
The first-ever stand-alone leaders meeting involving South Korea, Japan and the U.S. was intended to expand the scope of their cooperation to deal with security challenges presented by China. The united front they presented on the court ruling was one a major outcome of their discussions.
Biden welcomed their common position, emphasizing, “Together, we’re going to stand up for international law, freedom of navigation and the peaceful resolution of disputes in the South China Sea.”
India is another important player that has recently sided with the Philippines on the 2016 ruling on the South China Sea. India and the Philippines issued a joint statement after their foreign ministers meeting in late June, stressing “the need for peaceful settlement of disputes, and for adherence to international law,” including the ruling by The Hague.
The U.S. may have helped shape India’s new position. A week before the joint statement, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Biden agreed to address “challenges to the maritime rules-based order, including in the East and South China Seas” at a meeting in the White House.
Jeffrey Payne, an assistant professor at the National Defense University’s Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies, based in Washington, expects the U.S. and India to expand their cooperation in the South China Sea as New Delhi steps up its engagement with Southeast Asia and Pacific Island nations.
“In terms of India’s kind of perspective east, it started with an interest in trade, as with the rest of the world, given the markets that exist, especially in the Western Pacific. But it has matured to have security elements,” Payne told Nikkei.
The Biden administration hopes that the increasingly global coalition pushing back on China will give Beijing second thoughts about its aggressive behavior.
The U.S. has routinely conducted freedom of navigation operations and imposed sanctions on Chinese companies involved in the militarization of the South China Sea. But this has not changed China’s behavior.
The U.S. commitment to helping the Philippines secure its interests in the South China Sea is a key to closer security and economic cooperation between the two allies.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. vowed to defend its sovereignty in an annual address to the nation in July. China, for its part, rejects the court decision and continues to block Philippine resupply missions to Ayungin Shoal, also known as Second Thomas Shoal.
“On the area of foreign policy, I will not preside over any process that will abandon even one square inch of territory of the Republic of the Philippines to any foreign power,” Marcos said.
Days after China’s use of water cannon against the resupply ship in early August, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin spoke by phone with his Philippine counterpart, Gilberto Teodoro, and denounced China’s maritime behavior.
Austin reaffirmed that, “The Mutual Defense Treaty extends to Philippine public vessels, aircraft and armed forces — to include those of its Coast Guard — in the Pacific, including in the South China Sea,” according to a Pentagon readout of their conversation.
The CSIS’ Poling pointed out in an interview with Nikkei that the regular harassment of Philippine vessels demonstrates that Chinese ships are “clearly operating under the direction of top military and political leaders.”
“Eventually, China will go too far, there will be a mistake [and] there will be a loss of life,” Poling warned.
Source : NIKKEIASIA
