No deal with Beijing on WPS

The bad news is that Chinese President Xi Jinping was non-committal when, at the sidelines of the recent APEC summit in San Francisco, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. raised the issue of free access by our fisherfolk to our Exclusive Economic Zone in the West Philippine Sea.

Those who expected the Chinese president to readily accede to our request for free passage by our fishermen to their traditional fishing grounds in the South China Sea will no doubt be terribly disappointed.

But given Beijing’s growing assertiveness in its claim of ownership over practically the whole of the vital sealane, Xi’s apparent rejection of our president’s wish was not unexpected.

We recall that when the two presidents met in Beijing earlier this year, President Marcos asked his host to agree to the establishment of a hotline between the two countries to avoid any misunderstanding, miscommunication or escalation of tension in the West Philippine Sea.

Mr. Xi was non-committal as well, with nothing more than a perfunctory “We’ll see.”

The Chinese Coast Guard and their maritime militia continue to harass and intimidate our Coast Guard vessels in various ways: pointing military-grade laser beams and water cannons, even resorting to deliberate ramming to drive us away from our EEZ.

What did President Marcos actually tell the Chinese president?

He said in his three meetings so far with President Xi, “I always bring up the plight of our fishermen.”

In San Francisco, “I asked that we go back to the situation where both Chinese and Filipino fishermen were fishing together in these waters…We tried to come up with mechanisms to lower the tensions in the South China Sea,” Marcos said, without elaborating.

The President admitted that “problems remain and it is something that we need to continue to communicate…and hopefully to find ways to avoid that and have ways to move forward from this situation.”

While Marcos told Xi that “the problems that we have in the South China Sea should not be the defining element of our relationship,” and that efforts to resolve the South China Sea issue are still a “work in progress,” he stressed the need “to continue to be candid with one another and to be sincere in our desire to keep the peace…I do not think anybody wants to go to war.”

Given all this, it is true that prospects for maintaining peace and lessening the tension in the South China Sea appear murky at present.

But we have no choice but to continue talking with Beijing and finding ways to resolve differences.

That, and building alliances with friendly countries to avoid being bullied in our own EEZ, would seem to be the best course of action at this point.

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