Xi Jinping consolidates power — bad news for PH and Asean

THE recently concluded 50th Asean Anniversary Summit in Manila, as expected, focused its attention on the dispute in the West Philippine Sea. Some quarters expressed hopes for the resolution of the dispute with the pending negotiations between Asean and China for a binding Code of Conduct and also the onset of bilateral negotiations between the Philippines and China.

Overlooked by many is the outcome of the 19th Congress of the Communist Party of China ( CPC), which actually has a far greater impact on the West Philippine Sea dispute. The consolidation of power of President Xi Jinping, the chairman of the CPC, is not auspicious for a peaceful settlement of the West Philippine Sea dispute.

The aggressive policy of China in the West Philippine Sea, including the island reclamations and their militarization, took place under Xi’s watch. It is far-fetched to hope that he would reverse the same. To explain further, the Chinese Politburo, like any collegial governing body, splits into factions. One common split is the division of the party into orthodox communist hardliners and modernizers, just like the Politburo in the defunct Soviet Union. The history of communism has witnessed the outcome of such factional disputes in the past whereby modernizers triumphed over communist hardliners. Deng Xiaoping’s initiative to change China from a centrally planned into a market economy in 1979 represented a triumph of the modernizers over the militant communists. Mikhail Gorbachev’s accession to power in the Soviet Union in 1984 is another example of such a triumph by modernizers. In the instances cited, the triumph of modernizers have resulted in drastic shifts in communist foreign and domestic policies. Among Sovietologists, there is a school of thought which attributes the shifts in communist doctrine and policy to such factional disputes in the ruling Politburo.

Modernizers at the helm

Contemporary history has shown that it is far easier to establish friendly relations with a communist country when modernizers are at the helm rather than militant communists. The mini reforms of Nikita Krushchshev resulted in the adoption of the “peaceful coexistence doctrine.” The drastic reforms initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev resulted in the dismantling of the communist monolithic regime and the end of the Cold War. In short, peaceful resolution of the West Philippine Sea dispute would have been more auspicious if somebody in the mold of Mikhail Gorbachev had assumed power after the CPC’s last Congress instead of a resurrected Mao Zedong.

The elevation of Xi as a “Great Leader” on par with Mao means that his policies are now infallible. To cite some examples, during the Great Leap Forward, the agricultural polices of Mao resulted in mass starvation which killed as many as 50 million Chinese. However, since the Great Leader could do no wrong, the starvation was attributed to the failure of the party apparatchiks to properly implement the policies of Chairman Mao. During Stalin’s reign of terror in the 1930s, many apparatchiks went to their execution chambers affirming loyalty to Stalin. The victims were led to believe that the atrocities being perpetrated by the local party officials were contrary to the policies of Stalin. The controlled press in both countries makes this mass disinformation possible.

Based on precedents, the losers in the power struggle against Xi will be purged from the party leaving him in total control of the CPC. When Xi steps down from power in the next party Congress ( assuming he does not extend his term) he will pass on the mantle of power to a protege who will continue his aggressive policy in the West Philippine Sea, to wit: continuous encroaching on disputed territory, construction of artificial islands and then its militarization. Hence it will take a considerable time before we will see a thaw in the West Philippine Sea dispute.

West Philippine Sea dispute

For our part we should be patient. Territorial disputes are long drawn out affairs. The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which were annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940, regained their independence only after 50 years, in 1990. They waited for the reformer Mikhail Gorbachev to assume power in the Soviet Union. We should follow the same tract and recognize that peaceful settlement of the West Philippine Sea dispute depends on the leadership changes in the CPC, and that will not happen overnight.

The proposed negotiations on a binding Code of Conduct between Asean and China and our bilateral talks with Beijing will face formidable obstacles based on past statements of Beijing, to wit: 1) Negotiations must be within the framework of the nine-dash line demarcation; 2) negotiations must be strictly between Asean and China without interference from outside powers; and 3) the warning by Xi to President Duterte that he will war wage if we bring up the West Philippine Sea dispute in the bilateral talks.

Item 1 will mean discarding the decision of the UN Permanent Court of Arbitration at the Hague in our favor, not to mention key provisions of the Unclos (the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea). Item 2 will mean the emergence of a new power bloc, with China in the lead and Asean as the pawn, versus the rest of the world. Freedom of navigation is the concern of mankind, and if China’s agreement with Asean does not guarantee such freedom in the West Philippine Sea, we will end up in alliance with China against the rest of the world. This sounds bad enough already. However, Item 3 has the worst consequence. Any negotiation wherein one party can dictate what will be the topics for discussion (the agenda items) is not negotiation but dictation.

Many of our countrymen advocate negotiations to settle the West Philippine Sea dispute. However, as indicated above, there are many pitfalls in negotiations. The terms of reference of the negotiations is most important, and agreeing to the wrong terms can put one at an extreme disadvantage. In fact, the most likely scenario is that China will continue its reclamation activities while negotiations are going on. We will see a replication of the Middle East peace process, the Israelis continuing to build settlements in disputed areas even while negotiations proceed at snail’s pace. Under the circumstances, the forthcoming negotiations with China will be sham negotiations rather than true negotiations to resolve the West Philippine Sea dispute.