International pressure

Did China pull out the missiles it installed at the South China Sea? The question was raised recently following a CNN report sourced from images from the Israeli intelligence firm ImageSat International (ISI) suggesting that China may have either removed its missile system in the area or removed it. China had set up the missile systems in three of its outposts in the South China Sea (Spratlys and the Paracels, also partly claimed by the Philippines and Vietnam).

Images taken previously by ISI on Woody Island in the Paracels showed a number of missile launchers and a radar system on the island’s shores. But images taken on Sunday showed that these have disappeared. China had also previously landed in that island a bomber capable of carrying nuclear-tipped weapons.

These moves were obviously threats to our national security but the Philippine Government looked the other way apparently for fear of antagonizing a neighbor that can be source of loans for its major infrastructure projects. The official line has always been that the Philippines can never win against China in a military confrontation.

If the missiles have been removed (although it could be deployed again in a jiffy in the artificial islands China built there), then there is something that can be said about how international pressure can also be an effective deterrent against a powerful country riding roughshod over territorial claims by smaller and weaker nations.

China is a relatively new global military and economic power and obviously wants a redistribution of spheres of influence currently being held by Western states. It has focused its eyes on the resources-rich South China Sea that traditionally is the playground of the United States, an old imperialist power. But it is apparent also that the West led by the US is not giving up the Pacific to China.

China, given its economic and military might, can actually go for an outright territorial grab and its neighbors especially in southeast Asia, could not do anything much. In a way, that is what the Duterte administration has been harping on since it assumed power. The Philippines is helpless so the only way to go is to befriend the bully.

But times have changed considerably since imperialist powers used military might for a re-division of global spheres of influence that eventually led to World War I and World War II. Many powerful nations now possess weapons that can obliterate peoples when used, thus the fear of mutually assured destruction. Conflicts between nations are being resolved diplomatically or through international pressure.

China has been successful so far in wooing the leadership of some Southeast Asian countries using its economic clout to be able to solidify its hold on the South China Sea. The Philippines is the latest to join other weak countries like Cambodia in crafting a foreign policy that kowtows to China’s designs. That is why the response of the US, the imperialist power that is also the Philippines’ ally, has been muted.

Interestingly, the latest development happened after the US and some European powers like the United Kingdom and France are starting to make their moves against China’s designs in the South China Sea by holding military exercises and sending warships to assert freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.

If they know their heritage principles, they will realize that such a building looking over the Capitol will be a sore thumb FORMER CAPITOL CONSULTANT JOJO ELEAZAR BERSALES, ON GOV. HILARIO DAVIDE III’S PLAN TO BUILD A 20-STORY BUILDING INSIDE THE CAPITOL COMPOUND