Almost completely ignored by the local press and media and, of course, by the critics of the Duterte administration’s foreign policy regarding the South China Sea, Vietnam recently capitulated to China’s exclusive economic zone claims.
In March Vietnam’s state petroleum firm PetroVietnam withdrew its consent for Spanish energy firm Repsol to move ahead with a drilling project in the “Red Emperor” block off Vietnam’s southeastern coast. This was to be a $200-million oil and gas development project that has been in the works since 2009. Reports say that in July 2017, the Vietnamese military took a strong stance against the project with fears that China would escalate the situation as it has since 2014.
Also last July executives from Repsol said that China threatened to initiate a military conflict with Vietnam if the Spanish firm moved ahead with its planned drilling activities. From thediplomat.com: “The Vietnamese decision was not made freely by the government. For months China has been working to coerce the government of Vietnam and deprive it of the right to freely exploit its exclusive economic zone as should be its right under international law. The development underlines the ultimately shallow assurances the United States has been able to provide to regional states.”
Summing up the situation clearly—and for those who prefer a stronger response by the Philippine government—The Diplomat goes on to say, “Instead of seizing on international law, including the July 2016 arbitration award by a Hague-based tribunal in the Philippines’s 2013 case against China, Hanoi simply had to accept the reality of its poor odds of prevailing in a military conflict with China.”
Again from The Diplomat: “By failing to show up as Vietnam was coerced into a corner, Washington ultimately failed to live up to supporting the values that it claims to hold with regard to the future of the regional security architecture in Asia. The next time Chinese decision-makers seek to authorize the coercion of a Southeast Asian claimant state in the South China Sea, they’ll remember that.”
If the Philippines and others in the region cannot depend on any concrete assistance from the only country that has the power, then where do we go from here?
Those with the intellectual depth of a schoolchild would like to address this as China being a schoolyard “bully.” Nothing could be farther from the truth. This is all part of a calculated regional economic and political strategy. And we have seen this before.
The Monroe Doctrine was a United States policy of opposing European colonialism in the hemisphere in 1823. It stated that further efforts by European nations to take control of any independent state in North or South America would be viewed as “the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States.”
The Monroe Doctrine came to be on December 2, 1823 during President James Monroe’s annual message to Congress. “The American continents… are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.”
The three main concepts of the doctrine were separate spheres of influence for the Americas and Europe, non-colonization, and nonintervention creating a clear divide between the New World and Europe. The US also wanted to increase influence and trade in the region to the south.
Replace the “United States” with “China” and move the hemisphere to the other side of the world, and you have East Asia 2018. Met by the South American independent nations with suspicions, a Chilean businessman wrote to a friend: “But we have to be very careful: for the Americans of the north are only for themselves.”