China is intensifying a dangerous game in the South China Sea, in ways that risk drawing the U.S. into its fight with the Philippines.
In early March, two Chinese coast guard ships slammed a Philippines boat with high-pressure blasts of water cannon, smashing its windshield and preventing it from delivering supplies to a military outpost. A few weeks later, during another Philippines resupply run, Chinese water cannons hit the boat again, leaving its interior in shambles and injuring three Filipino navy personnel.
The tactics—which include Chinese coast guard and maritime militia ships bumping straight into Philippines vessels—are designed to make it more difficult for Manila to maintain the outpost at Second Thomas Shoal. China claims the reef as its own along with much of the strategic waterway.
Policymakers worry the increasingly tense encounters could result in a grave incident, push Manila to invoke its mutual-defense treaty with the U.S. and spiral into a broader conflict. That is why the South China Sea will be high on the agenda when President Biden huddles in Washington this week with his counterparts from the Philippines and Japan for their first-ever three-way summit.
“It’s a really critical hot spot right now that could end up in a bad place,” Adm. John Aquilino, commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, told a congressional committee last month, calling Chinese actions aggressive and dangerous.
The mutual-defense treaty between Washington and Manila can be triggered by an armed Chinese attack on Philippines armed forces or public vessels, including its coast guard, in the South China Sea. Adm. Aquilino said that if a Filipino sailor or soldier were killed, Manila could invoke the treaty.
“That would put our policy decision makers in a place that would require really tough choices,” he said.
Late last month, after the two most recent encounters with Chinese ships, Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.signaled that China had crossed a line. He said in a statement that he had approved “a response and countermeasure package” that he said was “proportionate, deliberate, and reasonable in the face of the open, unabating, and illegal, coercive, aggressive, and dangerous attacks” by China’s coast guard and maritime militia.
He didn’t elaborate on the new measures, but said: “Filipinos do not yield.”
The question the U.S. faces now is: How to get China to back off before someone gets badly hurt, by accident or otherwise, and brings the mutual-defense treaty into the picture. Washington has sought to demonstrate that—although it has a lot on its plate with Gaza and Ukraine—it is paying close attention to the South China Sea and has got its ally’s back.
The underlying calculation is that while Beijing is willing to push and provoke the Philippines, which has a much weaker military than its own, it doesn’t want to get into a direct fight with the U.S.
The American and Philippine militaries have conducted joint patrols in the South China Sea since November. When the Philippine resupply convoy heads to Second Thomas Shoal every few weeks, a U.S. warship is usually present at a nearby reef—staying out of the fray but maintaining a presence that both the Philippines and China can see.
These groupings knit the Philippines more deeply into U.S. networks in the region. They are part of the Biden administration’s efforts to not only level-up the U.S.’s friendships one-on-one but also to bring its friends together more—sometimes in groups of three, sometimes four, to work together where they can to counter China. Some experts call it a latticework approach.
Japan is negotiating what is called a reciprocal access agreement with the Philippines, aimed at making it easier for the countries’ militaries to exercise together. “Issues relating to the South China Sea are directly connected to peace and stability of the region and they are of legitimate interest to the international community including Japan,” a Japanese defense official said.
China disagrees, and says the issues are for Beijing and Manila to resolve between them. It chafes at what it sees as U.S. interference in particular, and accuses the Philippines of pulling in forces from outside the region. It blames Manila for the confrontations at sea.
Second Thomas Shoal lies within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone, approximately 105 nautical miles from its shores. Upon it lies Manila’s unconventional outpost: a dilapidated World War-II era ship, the BRP Sierra Madre, that the Philippines grounded there 25 years ago to keep China from seizing the reef. Filipino marines live on the decrepit ship and every few weeks, Manila sends a resupply convoy of four ships to support them.
Beijing says the Philippines is trying to transport construction materials to reinforce the Sierra Madre and permanently occupy Second Thomas Shoal.
Elected nearly two years ago, Marcos has driven a rapid shift away from his predecessor’s pro-China orientation and doubled down on the U.S. alliance. His administration has honed a new template for responding to China’s gray zone tactics: first, by continuously showing up in the South China Sea, and second, by showing the world what it is like to be at the receiving end of those tactics.
For months, the Philippines has sought to broadcast the confrontations to the world, putting out its own photos and videos and allowing journalists to join its resupply missions to Second Thomas Shoal. Those images—of small Philippines vessels surrounded by many and much larger Chinese ones, and of blasts of water slamming into Philippine boats—have helped Manila galvanize international support.
The problem for the U.S. and the Philippines is that over the past decade, China has put itself in a strong position in the South China Sea. It has created island bases that bristle with radars, sensors, missiles and runways. It also has built up massive fleets of coast guard and maritime militia ships that roam the waters enforcing China’s claims.
Still, it may be time to send stronger deterrence signals, said Zack Cooper, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute whose work focuses on U.S. strategy in Asia. One option would be for U.S. Navy vessels or surveillance aircraft to come closer when Chinese ships are confronting Philippines vessels, he said.
Another option, if Chinese pressure continued, he said, would be for the U.S. to fly non-surveillance aircraft, such as jet fighters or bombers, through the area to reinforce America’s messaging about the severity of the situation.
Cooper said that Washington could be clear with China that if it attempts to interfere with Philippine resupply in ways that risks the mutual-defense treaty being invoked, the U.S. will start assisting those missions more directly to avoid a bad clash leading to armed conflict.
“We’re playing Russian roulette every six weeks or so with these resupply missions and you only get lucky so many times,” he said.
