The waters of the South China Sea are getting stormier than ever as Beijing and Manila trade barbs over an elusive “gentlemen’s agreement” that China claims has kept the peace in a disputed area of the waterway for years.
Recriminations over the deal, which China and former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte have said was a spoken arrangement reached between the two countries over Manila’s moves near the disputed Second Thomas Shoal, have pushed tensions dramatically higher in the South China Sea.
While China claims some 90% of the energy-rich waterway that is also home to crucial trade routes, Manila insists that the Second Thomas Shoal falls within its exclusive economic zone — which extends 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) from its coast — and has vowed that “it will never abandon the area.”
As the China Coast Guard steps up its moves against Philippine government vessels attempting to resupply a remote military outpost at the shoal, fears are growing that a clash could spiral into a larger conflict involving the United States, which has a mutual defense treaty with Manila.
What is the row about?
Atop the Second Thomas Shoal, less than 200 km from the Philippine island of Palawan, sits the aging hull of the BRP Sierra Madre, a Philippine Navy ship beached on the submerged reef in 1999.
Following China’s building of structures on Mischief Reef, less than 40 km away from the shoal, in 1994 and 1995, Manila intentionally grounded the World War II-era ship, creating a military outpost there in a move widely seen as part of an effort to reinforce Manila’s sovereignty amid a concerted campaign by Beijing to cement its own expansive claims to nearly all of the South China Sea.
The area, which the Philippines says is in its exclusive economic zone but which China also claims, has since been a flash point for confrontation, with the two countries’ coast guards routinely squaring off as Manila looks to maintain its strategic foothold.
But, with the condition of the rusting ship continuing to deteriorate a quarter century after it was grounded, the current government in Manila has taken a more active approach to resupplying — and potentially fortifying — the outpost.
For Beijing, this approach — which it claims is heartily supported by Washington — has represented a dramatic departure from what it alleges were agreements with both the Duterte government and that of his successor, current Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
In response to the more robust tempo of resupply missions, the China Coast Guard has repeatedly used water cannons to blast Philippine vessels trying to make their way to troops stationed on the Sierra Madre.
Those moves have also helped bring the U.S. into the fray, with Washington emphasizing that an armed attack in the South China Sea on Philippine public vessels, aircraft and military — including its coast guard — would trigger its mutual defense treaty with the Philippines.
'Secret agreements'
Beijing has released a trickle of details about the alleged unwritten agreements over access to the shoal, and Duterte himself said in an interview that he had reached a deal with Chinese leader Xi Jinping to maintain the status quo in the area. The former Philippine president said the deal involved not bringing construction materials for the repair and upkeep of the Sierra Madre.
“If it were a gentleman's agreement, it would always have been an agreement to keep the peace in the South China Sea," Duterte was quoted as saying last month.
China has also claimed that Philippine officials have promised to tow away the Sierra Madre, though officials in the Marcos administration say they are unaware of any such agreement and would not remove the dilapidated warship, which is manned by a small number of sailors and marines.
Although Duterte has alluded to a consensus being reached during a visit to Beijing in 2016, China’s Foreign Ministry claimed Monday that the two sides had reached an agreement on the shoal at the end of 2021, and that Marcos, who was sworn into office in June 2022, continued to implement it together with Beijing until February 2023.
The ministry said this deal was later followed by an “internal understanding” reached last September, and then by a "new model" for resupply missions to the shoal. Both deals, the ministry claimed, were ultimately abandoned by Manila.
Marcos has denied any knowledge of the pact and said last month that he was “horrified by the idea that we have compromised, through a secret agreement, the territory, the sovereignty and the sovereign rights of the Filipinos.” Other senior officials in the Marcos administration have denied China’s claims that it reached separate agreements later, dismissing this as propaganda.
Stormy seas ahead?
China has appeared to take the offensive on the issue, with Bloomberg News quoting Chinese officials as saying Wednesday that Beijing may release within days the audio of a purported phone call with a top Philippine military official that it says is proof of an agreement with the Marcos government.
In an alleged transcript, the official reportedly agreed to notify the Chinese two days in advance of any resupply missions and to transport only food, water and humanitarian goods to the Sierra Madre. Both sides agreed to send one coast guard vessel and one civilian ship to each resupply, the Chinese officials said, adding that the Philippines had broken all three provisions of the deal — an agreement that would echo the one reached with Duterte.
How Manila would respond to such a release remains an open question, but officials in the Marcos administration have repeatedly said that any secret agreements would be deemed invalid.
Going forward, observers expect skirmishes between the two countries’ coast guards to continue, barring any deal to cool soaring tensions.
But, considering the current trajectory, this will leave the two sides exposed to a potential miscalculation such as the accidental death of a crew member — a worst-case scenario already being discussed by regional officials and security experts.
Such an unfortunate turn of events would beg the question: Will Manila invoke its defense treaty with Washington?
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