THIS option is similar to the joint problem-solving (JPS) technique at the Program on Negotiation (PON) in Harvard University Law School and its consortium partners, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Tufts University.
JPS is neither exclusively soft nor hard, but a combination of both: Soft on the people and hard on the problem.
“Instead of attacking each other, you jointly attack the problem. Instead of glowering across the table, you sit next to each other facing your common problem. In short, you turn face-to-face confrontation into side-by-side negotiation,” said famous negotiator Dr. William Ury in his lectures.
JPS generates better results for both sides, saves time and energy by avoiding brinkmanship and posturing, and usually leads to harmonious working relationships and to mutual benefits in the future.
“The option, called ‘Track 2’ diplomacy and adopted by a group of retired ambassadors, military officials, businessmen and academics, was essentially meant to discuss side by side with their counterparts when they went to Beijing from September 13 to 15,” according to retired Gen. Edilberto Adan, chairman and president of the Association of Generals and Flag Officers, who was with the group.
Other members of the group were retired Ambassadors Alberto Enconmienda, Eva Betita, Cristina Ortega, Jaime Yambao and Jaime Bautista of the Philippine Ambassadors Foundation; retired Armed Forces officials Enrique Galang, Rodolfo Tor, Carlos Agustin and Alejandro Flores; business executives Alan Ortiz, George Anghel and Bernardo Benedicto; Ananda Almase from academe; and former Interior Secretary Rafael Alunan, composed the Filipino group.
The Philippine Council for Foreign Relations said it sent the group to China for a series of dialogues with their contacts and counterparts to discuss issues that arose from the South China Sea conflict.
The Council explained Track 2 diplomacy involved informal and unofficial talks separate from the “Track 1” mission of former President Fidel V. Ramos as special envoy to China.
The council said all tracks, however, will cooperate on “Track 1.5” diplomacy toward the final resolution of the maritime dispute.
While in China, the delegation called on Liu Zhenmin, vice minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Ambassador Wu Hailong, president of the Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs; Yang Yi, head of the China Institute of Strategic Studies; and Yang Xiuping, secretary-general of Asean-China Center.
Liu lauded the initiatives taken by the Duterte administration to seek bilateral talks with China, following the July 12 ruling of the international tribunal on the sea dispute, the council said.
“He downplayed the incident, calling it an isolated incident that should not disturb the long-term relations between the two countries,” the group said.
Liu expressed hope the Philippines would handle the dispute appropriately and get bilateral relations “on track once again,” the group said.
“Given that relations between the two countries had sunk to its lowest level since it started decades ago, he [Liu] expressed the wish that under the new Philippine dispensation, the relations between the two countries will arrive at a new turning point,” the council said. “[Liu] hoped further that the Philippines can meet China halfway, handle the dispute appropriately, and place [bilateral] relations back on track through dialogue, consultations and cooperation.”
“Chinese think tanks [the Asean-China Center, the Institute of Strategic Studies and the Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs] also lauded the ‘openness of the new administration to restart bilateral talks, while keeping in the backburner the tribunal’s decision without necessarily giving up the respective claims of both nations,” the council said.
On March 10, 2009, the Philippines approved Republic Act 9522 defining the baselines from where its maritime zones are to be computed as defined by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos).
In reaction, China on May 7, 2009, submitted a note verbale (or diplomatic letter) to the United Nations claiming “indisputable sovereignty” over all the islands in the West Philippine Sea and their “adjacent/relevant waters” encompassed by its now famous “nine-dash line map.”
This map covers the entire South China Sea (SCS) bordering the shorelines of Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, Taiwan and the Philippines. It converts the huge SCS into an internal waterway or lake of China.
For the Philippines, the dispute involves mainly (1) the Kalayaan or Spratlys group of about 700 isles and reefs (called Nansha by China) 370 kilometers west of Palawan; and (2) the Bajo de Masinloc, also known as Panatag or Scarborough Shoal (called Huangyan by China) 220 km west of Zambales. The Philippines claims ownership of the resources in and sovereignty over many of the Kalayaan isles and Masinloc.
China asserts “the Philippines’s illegal occupation of some of the islands and reefs of China’s Nansha Islands is the direct cause [of] the SCS dispute between China and the Philippines.”
To back its assertion, China created “Sansha City” on July 24, 2012, “to administer” the whole SCS and the islets, reefs and resources there and sent armed naval vessels “to safeguard” them.
The Philippines was, thus, constrained to initiate the arbitral proceedings. In its decision, the tribunal upheld the Philippines’s rights to maritime areas as defined by the Unclos; “China’s maritime claims in the SCS…are contrary to the Unclos and invalid;” and China should “desist from activities that violate” the Philippines’s maritime rights.
To reach the writer, e-mail cecilio.arillo@gmail.com.