Analysts: Philippines can learn from KL’s sea dispute strategy

By Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza, Reporter

THE PHILIPPINES can count on Malaysia to help resolve the South China Sea dispute, security analysts said on Thursday, citing the country’s wise use of natural resources in areas it claims in the waterway.

“The Philippines must learn from how Malaysia utilizes the natural resources in its claimed island features and promotes tourism without further aggression and complaints from Beijing,” Chester B. Cabalza, founding president of Manila-based International Development and Security Cooperation, said in a Facebook Messenger chat.

“Both the Philippines and Malaysia must comprehensively address maritime insecurity in the region, given their common maritime interests and as leading voices in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN),” he added.

Malaysia, which has strong ties with China, had opened Swallow Reef, an oceanic atoll in the Spratly Islands, to diving tourism. The islet, which Malaysia calls Layang-Layang, is also being claimed by  China, Vietnam and Taiwan.

China claims more than 80% of the South China Sea.

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar bin Ibrahim was in Manila for a two-day visit that started on March 1.

During a meeting with President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. on Monday night, he urged him to involve ASEAN in trying to resolve the Philippines’ sea dispute with China.

Resolving the conflict through ASEAN would help the two countries come up with “a comprehensive approach and achieve an amicable resolution,” Mr. Ibrahim told Mr. Marcos, based on a statement from the Philippine presidential palace.

The two leaders agreed to boost security ties and efforts against transnational crimes.

Mr. Cabalza urged ASEAN countries to “adhere to their mission and vision of a united region amid the great power rivalry between China and the US in the region.

“It is expected that Southeast Asia’s sea lanes would become naval battlegrounds of the two superpowers in case a big miscalculation triggers a war,” he said.

Both Malaysia and the Philippines recognize “how the maritime hotspot has become a theater for the great power competition,” Lucio Blanco Pitlo III, a research fellow at the Asia-Pacific Pathways to Progress Foundation, said in a Messenger chat.

“Close encounters between the US and China in the disputed waterway or the airspace above it may lead to accidents that can exacerbate tensions,” he added.

Some ASEAN countries might be worried about stronger security ties between the Philippines and US even if they are also anxious about China’s increasing assertiveness, he said.

The Marcos government has given the US access to four more military bases under their 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA).

Some ASEAN countries “might ask Beijing to harden its posture and intensify its activities in choppy waters,” Mr. Pitlo said.

“As most ASEAN countries continue to eschew taking a side in the US-China rivalry, there may also be concerns about the Philippines moving closer to the US by granting it further military access and exploring possible joint patrols,” he added.

‘COMPLICATED’
Kuala Lumpur’s (KL) push for an ASEAN-centered strategy in the South China Sea dispute reflects the sentiments of civil society, says Hansley A. Juliano, a political economy researcher studying at Nagoya University’s Graduate School of International Development in Japan.

“They do want ASEAN to be this bloc structure by which members can lobby and defend mutual interests in the region,” he said via chat.

Mr. Juliano said Mr. Ibrahim’s push is similar to the defunct Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, created in 1954 primarily to block further communist gains in the region.

“However, this tends to clash with the reality that more often than not, ASEAN integration has clashed multiple times with the sovereignty and nonintervention clauses that individual member states invoke to not be bound by regional agreements,” he added.

He also said the push for ASEAN countries to take a stand against China is complicated by the fact that three countries — Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam — share their borders with China, while most members have strong cultural and economic ties with China.

China is Malaysia’s largest trade partner, accounting for 18.9% of total trade, according to a report by the South China Morning Post.

It is also the Philippines’ biggest trading partner. Philippine exports to and imports from China hit $10.97 and $28.2 billion, respectively, last year.

“There’s massive vested interest in Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines to mobilize ASEAN as a bulwark against China,” Mr. Juliano said. “However, when practically half of ASEAN is in Mainland Asia and is held hostage by Chinese capital through the Mekong River projects and Belt and Road projects, this is far easier said than done.”