One curious piece of news slipped under the radar on the same day that the drama of former president Rodrigo R. Duterte’s arrest unfolded, gripped the country and caught the attention of foreign media exactly a week ago.

Only two news outlets — one which buried this piece of news at the bottom of page 6, while the other was a purely online outfit — reported that Chinese police had arrested three visiting Filipinos for alleged espionage. The first two had been recipients of a scholarship under a sisterhood agreement between Hainan and Palawan, and had returned to the Chinese province to take up a job offer. They were arrested in early November, just as the Senate was wrapping up its probe on former Bamban, Tarlac mayor Alice Guo (a.k.a. Guo Huaping), who has been branded as an “agent of influence” of China. Then, just last month — after Philippine authorities announced that they had arrested a handful of Chinese nationals and their Filipino accomplices in two operations for alleged espionage — the Philippine Consulate General in Guangzhou confirmed that Chinese authorities had arrested a third former scholar under the same program.

These developments have gone largely ignored, for now, but signal a marked escalation in our tensions with China.

SPY VS SPY
While there may be some truth to suspicions about the Chinese nationals who our law enforcers had nabbed, given the sophisticated gadgets found in their possession that are not readily available to ordinary folks, it is to be expected that all major foreign powers have their spies in this country which straddles the strategic South China Sea.

Some local quarters have argued that the Chinese now detained by the National Bureau of Investigation can’t be spies, saying that “human intelligence” (HUMINT) is obsolete in an age of satellites. However, traditional information gathering methods like HUMINT still come in handy (e.g., for low-level signals intelligence like the one we saw recently), since satellites are much more costly to operate and, therefore, are more selectively employed.

At the same time, it is doubtful that those Palawan residents now in Chinese detention are spies — well, at least not ours anyway. Remember that 2016 incident wherein one of our main intelligence agencies was criticized for using “information” from a satirical website in a “confidential” report to the Senate? If anything, that proved that our spies are neither skilled nor equipped enough to operate abroad.

But here we are — arresting well-equipped Chinese suspects, and so Beijing seems to have decided to engage us in hostage diplomacy. “Some of us were actually expecting this to happen, because it is becoming their trademark,” one Filipino diplomat said in a recent chat, noting that China’s image and reputation had taken a hit from Philippine action against suspected Chinese spies.

Unless those Palaweños were employed by a foreign power (highly doubtful, because who would be dumb enough to spy in that technologically advanced police state up north), expect them to be part of a discreet prisoner swap in the next year or two (kind of like the exchange which Canada and China carried out in September 2021.)

So, from simply blocking our subsistence fishermen from accessing their traditional fishing grounds, Beijing has upped the ante with thousands of our nationals now in China possibly serving as bargaining chips. Make no mistake: if that’s not escalation, then I don’t know what is.

Now, I do not know if the arrest of those Palaweños warrants a general travel advisory on this matter (I am sure our Foreign Affairs and Tourism authorities will balk at that approach), but I think those promoting or handling such people-to-people exchanges between the two countries should still be responsible enough to include this alert in briefings of outbound Pinoys.

HOW FAR DO WE TAKE THIS?
And that’s just it.

Now, I applaud our legal victory at The Hague, our transparency initiative and moves to draw in other states with interest in keeping South China Sea navigation free as way of enforcing the July 2016 arbitral ruling. These steps have been a fitting — though inadequate — response to our 2012 Scarborough Shoal debacle, which demonstrated to all and sundry (including Beijing first and foremost) the limits of Washington’s “ironclad” commitment when faced with the world’s only other superpower.

Those methods constitute our warfare by other means (in much the same way that China — described by some analysts as “a risk-averse bully” — wields its own methods), and each time Beijing cries “ouch” shows that we are on point.

But then, just how far can we take this tack, especially in the face of a currently incoherent, unpredictable US foreign policy?

Analysis by experts since 2012 have noted our missteps, as well as inherent flaws, like a foreign policy that could change with every new administration after six years vs. China’s long-term mindset and planning. Such missteps stem partly from missing opportunities as well as from misreading signals from both Beijing and Washington.

Some observers argue that the US defense strategy has prioritized building capability to prevail in a long-term competition with China, but US President Donald Trump’s transactional approach to foreign policy has made Washington’s next moves in specific issues like the South China Sea increasingly uncertain. Taking a cue from Ukraine’s experience, US allies in the region understandably fear that US support — which for the Philippines has never been clear nor proven beyond annual joint war games, occasional joint patrols and ship visits — could go up in smoke overnight.

And I am sure that ever-the-strategic folks in Beijing are keeping their eyes peeled for any chance to prod Washington in that direction in the Indo-Pacific region (I’ll give them that).

MISSING PIECE OF THE PUZZLE
Hence, something tells me that we need to read Beijing much better, even as we await actions beyond assurances last month from US State Secretary Marco Rubio and National Security Adviser Michael Waltz in order to see which way the wind blows from Washington.

That means we need to tap China experts to help us out of this rut, and I am glad that we employed old China hands like the late Jose Santiago L. Sta. Romana and former CNN Beijing bureau chief Jaime A. FlorCruz — both of whom spent quite some time in exile in China during our Martial Law years — as our ambassador there.

I did say in an earlier piece that a lot of knowledge about China has yet to be tapped among our businessmen who deal regularly with counterparts and officials there. So maybe an advisory group can be set up with these businessmen plus knowledgeable academics to help us read Beijing’s moves better, i.e., whether what it does constitutes mere propaganda (largely for its domestic audience), a clever ruse, or a genuine overture.

All of my analyst pals were educated/are connected with western institutions, so it was quite a treat for me to engage a couple of younger China hands in chats on this matter:

• Dr. Brian Wong, assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong, a fellow at the Centre on Contemporary China & the World, as well as chief strategy officer of the HK-ASEAN Foundation; and,

• Lucio B. Pitlo III, president of the Philippine Association for Chinese Studies and fellow at the Asia Pacific Pathways to Progress Foundation, Inc.

Messrs. Wong and Pitlo agree that, unlike the rest of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Philippines is viewed by China as a US proxy. Thus, Beijing has singled us out for special treatment (note how Vietnam, which has built the most structures in the South China Sea, has not borne as much Chinese aggression as we have). The establishment of five Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement sites in 2016 and the addition of four more sites in 2023 “ticked off” Beijing and cemented this perception of the Philippines, Mr. Wong said. Those sites may have some deterrence value, but Mr. Trump’s erratic foreign policy has suddenly cast a cloud over their fate. Any Philippine overture to Beijing will simply have to take this perception into account.

Mr. Pitlo also advised our policy makers to be alert for signs of Beijing’s accommodation of Mr. Trump’s priorities anywhere in the globe, since that of course will come at a price, e.g., acquiescence to the sale by Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison Holdings of shares of its units that operate two key ports in Panama to BlackRock (China has criticized and is now reviewing the sale).

WINDOW NARROWING
Mr. Wong said that the current instability of US foreign policy has just made some form of Philippine-China rapprochement urgent, since Manila may soon find itself “slipping towards the edge of the cliff” without US backing.

Key steps:

First, there has to be “a big diplomatic reset” with Beijing, preferably before the Philippines assumes the ASEAN chair next year (else, China boycotting or sending a minor official to those meetings would be an embarrassment for us). Perhaps reciprocal visits by President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr., and Chinese President Xi Jinping (who has been known to brusquely rebuff counterparts he does not agree with) would be out of the question for now. But the process could start with a visit by senior Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade officials (note that Chinese officials had complained that we stopped bilateral defense exchanges, something which even Vietnam does).

Second, private sector leaders could conduct backchannel talks to backstop official overtures.

Depending on results of initial official and backchannel exchanges, Manila could send signals that would persuade Beijing to de-escalate tensions. What those signals will consist of, how, and when they will be sent is something that China experts can prescribe.

Messrs. Wong and Pitlo noted that while Manila seems aware that “saving face” is still important to Beijing, which has been clearly hurting from the blow to its international image from our transparency initiative (as it burnishes its reputation as a global peacemaker, replacing the United States, and champion of “small and weak countries”¹ ) we should start wielding that knowledge to encourage a more conciliatory stance from Beijing, i.e., where’s the candy?

At this point, let me just note that while we keep saying that our West Philippine Sea spat does not constitute the entirety of our bilateral relations with China, it does occupy the bulk of messaging to the public (compared to, say, news that China’s growing appetite for pineapples fueled growth of these Philippine exports in 2024). Perhaps the government can package information on these other aspects of Philippine-China relations better (not just to meet some quota for press releases) in order to give the public a holistic perspective of bilateral ties.

Finally, as ASEAN chair next year, Manila could set up “a purely advisory, non-binding dialogue platform” with China and all other ASEAN states with a stake in the South China Sea that “would be conducive towards fostering a modicum of minimal understanding and keeping communication lines open,” Mr. Wong said. This is separate from the troubled talks on a prospective code of conduct in those waters which have dragged for more than a decade.

Don’t get me wrong: the Philippines should accelerate efforts to achieve minimum deterrence capability with more diversified and less US armament. This tack includes tapping private funding — a proposal that was aired as early as 2016² and revived last year — though Congress will have to repeal a restriction on loans to the military establishment³.

Strategy-wise, small states bearing aggression from giants like China will be well-advised to draw lessons from Ukraine’s credible defense⁴, and Taiwan has been at the forefront in studying these applications⁵. Our Defense establishment may want to discreetly engage with counterparts in Ukraine and Taiwan (our one-China policy notwithstanding) as we hone our strategy on this matter.

And, of course, encouraging all countries that rely on a free South China Sea to be actively engaged remains a sound strategic anchor for now.

So, depending on how Beijing responds to our overtures (backed by standing down of its forces in our waters) — fingers crossed — our transparency initiative could give way to more conciliatory messaging for starters. n

¹ Ryan Woo and Laurie Chen, “Major powers should not bully the weak, China foreign minister says,” Reuters, March 8, https://tinyurl.com/24ah7dmj

² Nestor Corrales, “Teodoro asks business leaders: Help finance AFP upgrade,” Inquirer.net, July 12, 2024 https://tinyurl.com/243luh89

³ Manny Mogato, “Funding the military modernization,” News5, Nov. 12, 2024, https://tinyurl.com/29ch6cv5

⁴ Olena Guseinova, “Did we learn anything from the war in Ukraine?,” The Interpreter (published by the Lowy Institute), Feb. 25, https://tinyurl.com/227rt6yk

⁵ Mick Ryan, “Taiwan and Ukraine: Learning the right lessons,” The Interpreter, Dec. 16, 2024, https://tinyurl.com/2ddvg9hp

Wilfredo G. Reyes was editor-in-chief of BusinessWorld from 2020 through 2023.