The South China Sea (29 page)

This lies behind what may appear to be a general passivity in the population about the South China Sea – or the West Philippine Sea as it has been officially known in the country since 5 September 2012.
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While the 2013 Pew Survey suggested that 90 per cent of the population regarded the dispute with China as a ‘big problem’ there is little demand for action. ‘It's not that Filipinos don't care about the West Philippine Sea, it's just that they know that it belongs to us – by sheer proximity,’
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argues Jose Santos Ardivilla, a weary observer of these trends as both a cartoonist for the
Manila Star
newspaper under the pen-name ‘Sic N Tyred’ and a humanities lecturer at the University of the Philippines. ‘They're not immediately affected by it and they have other pressing issues. But they do care about sovereignty and ownership because we've heard that the islands are quite mineral rich.’ In the days after the Scarborough Shoal incident began, hackers from both the Philippines and China waged an online war
to deface each other's websites. There were signs that popular nationalism was being stirred into life over the rocks but it dissipated within days. In short, there is little pressure from below to push the elite into taking action over the territorial disputes. Such pressure that does exist comes from a thin stratum of political activists and commentators but it has little effect: the elite is almost incapable of consensus, let alone concerted action.

One of the most striking features of Philippine politics is just how little agreement there is about the ‘national interest’. There is plenty of rhetoric about the nation, particularly at election time, but regional identities are often stronger. As a collection of islands divided internally by steep mountain ranges it's not surprising that people look inwards towards their local ruler rather than outwards to a faraway national capital. Both Spanish and American colonisers found it convenient to rule through these local bosses, cementing both the families’ hold on power and their own. For the Philippines as a whole, the result has been local strength and national weakness. Manila is weak, local rulers frequently act with impunity and, even at the national level, powerful families can run private policies purely in their own interests. Since they control the commanding heights of the economy and politics, individuals’ influence can be profound and destabilising. The scandals over the NorthRail and Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking projects (see Chapter 5) exposed the way national figures have, time and time again, leveraged the national interest and bargained with foreign governments for their own personal gain.

Very occasionally elite nationalism plays a role in international politics. In 1991 the Senate stunned Washington by voting against the renewal of the 1947 Military Bases Agreement, forcing the closure of the vast American naval base at Subic Bay. But those were special circumstances. Some of the 12 dissident senators were old-school nationalists who felt the country's development had been stunted by its reliance on Uncle Sam. But their numbers were swelled by popular anger against Washington's earlier role in supporting the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos (which had, at least in its early years, attempted to reduce the power of the old elite families). Others didn't want the Philippines to host American nuclear weapons and some were angry about the abuse of local women by US servicemen.

Yet 1991 was an exception. The ties that bind the Filipino elite to the United States – the shared language, history and outlook – are tight. But
they lull its members into unwarranted comfort based on their assumption that the feeling is mutual. This fraction of society, that has rendered such great service to Washington over several generations, has convinced itself, just as General MacArthur did in 1944, that America ‘shall return’ in the hour of need and naturally take the Philippine side in any disputes. This exaggerated sense of their own importance blinds policy-makers to changing realities in the region: Washington's relationship with Beijing is now far more important than its obligations to Manila. The result has been dangerous for the country as a whole and it has blundered into foreign policy crises, such as the standoff at Scarborough Shoal in 2012, full of bluster but without the muscle to back it up. This failure of belief in the United States may have wider consequences in the future. The elite may decide that its interests are better served by closer relations with Beijing, or it may stick with Washington and lose its legitimacy in the eyes of the wider population if Washington fails to deliver in crisis after crisis.

But there is another strand to Filipino nationalism that plays on another antipathy – towards the more obviously ‘Chinese’ minority. In contrast with the
mestizo
elite that sought to hide their Chinese origins, twentieth-century immigrants had little choice but to remain publicly identified as such. For centuries the Fujianese were kept outside Filipino society. The Spanish classified them as ‘Sangleys’ and then ‘Chinos’, the American administration passed a ‘Chinese Exclusion Law’ to control their immigration and a 1947 treaty placed them under the jurisdiction of the Republic of China – a situation that was only ended in 1975 as Manila switched its diplomatic recognition to Communist China and made the ‘Chinos’ full citizens. As a community they have prospered. Nineteen of the 40 richest Filipinos on the 2013
Forbes Magazine
list had obviously Chinese surnames: Henry Sy owns shopping malls, Lucio Tan owns beer and tobacco businesses, John Gokongwei owns an airline and real estate, George Ty owns financial services companies – and so on.
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Some of these fortunes have been bolstered through cooperation with old
mestizo
families – Sy with the Ayalas and Gokongwei with the Lopezes, for example.
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But prejudice against people with ‘short names’ lingers. It's common to hear ethnic Chinese referred to as ‘intsiks’ (insects) by other Filipinos, although the word has now been taken up in an ironic way by some Chinese to refer to themselves. They sometimes refer to new arrivals from
China as ‘genuine intsiks’. Today the accepted term for Chinese-Filipinos is ‘Tsinoy’ – a play upon ‘Pinoy’, the Tagalog word for Filipino.

The Tsinoy community is most obvious in the Manila district of Binondo, which was originally a piece of land given to Chinese who had converted to Catholicism and their offspring – the original
mestizos
.
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Binondo became home for the wider Chinese population in the late eighteenth century after the destruction of the Parian ‘ghetto’ in which the non-converted Chinese had originally been obliged to live (within easy range of the Spanish guns on the city wall). Binondo is also just a cannon shot away from the old city but today the risks to life and limb don't come from gunfire but from the stinking waterways feeding the Pasig River and the miasmas of exhaust fumes that fill the narrow streets. On first sight it appears run down but behind the decay, the district remains a key hub of the national economy. Its small shops are often fronts for much larger trading or distribution businesses. Large tower blocks are going up on the spaces in between.

Partly through heritage and partly through administrative fiat Binondo retains a distinct hybrid character. Binondo was remade in the early 1970s after the mayor of Manila decided that it wasn't ‘Chinese’ enough. In an effort to attract tourists, ornate pagoda gates were erected at the entrances to the district and the community was ordered to display Chinese signs over their businesses.
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Incense sticks are lit before Catholic altars, Hong Kong and Hollywood DVDs mingle on the shelves and English mixes with Hokkien, the language of Fujian province on the other side of the sea. As tensions have grown between the Philippines and China, attention has again focused on the loyalties of the Tsinoy population. Are these people any more pro or anti the US or China than the rest of the population?

In the shops of Binondo the overwhelming sentiment is a desire to avoid any kind of trouble. Few will be openly quoted but one print-shop owner typifies the district: ‘business is business, politics is politics’. There's wariness though. ‘The people in the middle of society don't have a problem with the Chinese but the uneducated ones and those with vested interests might,’ he cautions, blaming the media for stirring up antipathies. On a different street Ka Wilson Ng, successful baker and past president of the local Lions Club, personifies Tsinoy hybridity. ‘If they attack us, I will defend this country. But if we attack them, I will side with China.’ He
clearly identifies with ‘us’ – the Filipinos – but ties still bind him to the other country. Wilson's family came from Fujian three generations before him. He married a Filipino woman and they spoke Hokkien at home but he doubts if his grandchildren can muster more than a few words of the language. It's a story of irresistible integration.

Across the population as a whole, attitudes towards China have been generally positive for many years, albeit less so than towards the United States. In 2005, 54 per cent of Filipinos had a positive view of China and 30 per cent a negative one. By 2011, with trade between the two countries rocketing, the positives were up to 62 per cent with the negatives still on 31 per cent. However, in 2013, in the wake of the Scarborough Shoal standoff, the positives fell back to 48 per cent, according to the Pew Global Attitudes Survey, with 39 per cent now regarding China as more of an enemy than a partner. It seems unlikely that this will translate into popular calls for action, however. Despite rising levels of concern about China's intentions, periodic ‘flame wars’ between online bloggers and the volubility and pictorial appeal of Manila's street protests, none of the major players in Philippine politics has yet managed to link the struggles over sovereignty and offshore energy resources with the masses’ daily struggle for survival. Whether from left or right, the argument is still couched in the high-falutin language of national sovereignty and, in the Philippines, rhetorical battles come a distant second behind the daily struggles to put food on tables.

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Around the coast of the South China Sea other ‘Chinese’ communities, descendants – in the main – of other Fujianese sojourners, are bedevilled, always to their great irritation, with recurring questions about their loyalties. The stakes are perhaps highest in Indonesia where, during the May 1998 riots in the wake of the Asian financial crisis, Sino-Indonesians were specifically targeted – partly by agents provocateurs from the military who were looking for an excuse for a coup – but also by street mobs. Several hundred ethnic Chinese were killed in the rioting and many thousands more fled the country – taking around $20 billion worth of investment with them. But in the years since, the position of those who stayed and
survived has improved dramatically. Chinese culture is celebrated, discrimination has declined and prosperity has returned. The disputes in the South China Sea are virtually irrelevant to them despite the Chinese claim to part of Indonesia's claimed Exclusive Economic Zone near the Natuna Islands. Ever since Indonesia's display of offshore military might in the summer of 1996 (see Chapter 3) Beijing has been circumspect about overtly pursuing the issue. As a result, the issue raises no great passions in the country at all. The 2013 Pew Survey suggested 70 per cent of Indonesians had a favourable view of China, compared to 61 per cent with a positive view of the US. Just 3 per cent saw China as an enemy.

On the map, and occasionally in the sea, Malaysians might have more reason to be concerned about the disputes. The country claims 12 features in the Spratly group and occupies five of them – all within the ‘U-shaped line’.
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Well within its EEZ lies the James Shoal – the Beting Serupai in Malay, Zengmu Ansha in Chinese – which Beijing has officially declared the southernmost point of its territory, although it's 22 metres below the sea surface and over a 1,500 kilometres from China ‘proper’. Chinese vessels disrupted oil survey work off the coast of Sarawak, well within Malaysia's EEZ, twice in August 2012 and again on 19 January 2013. But even when Chinese naval vessels stopped at the shoal in March 2013 to try to reinforce their claim, the incident failed to stir emotions. Given that this was just a month before a hotly contested general election this could have been a moment when the issue could potentially have been exploited for political ends – but it wasn't.

‘Malaysians are much more occupied with “bread and butter” issues like social justice, corruption, governance, accountability, identity politics and public safety,’ says Cheng-Chwee Kuik, a lecturer in Strategic Studies at the National University of Malaysia and an expert on relations with China. In recent years an increasingly assertive civil society has taken to the streets to demand a greater say in national politics but the question of the South China Sea has not been on their lips or placards. In fact Malaysians became more outspoken over a government agreement in June 2012 to rent of a pair of pandas – Feng Yi and Fu Wa – from China for the seemingly extortionate fee of 20 million Ringgit ($6 million) to celebrate 40 years of diplomatic relations. But the resulting abuse poured onto the head of the prime minister, not Beijing.

It's highly unlikely that the question of relations with China will feature in political campaigning for one simple reason: cash. Since 2009, China has been Malaysia's largest trading partner.
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Two-way trade was worth $90 billion in 2011 with a $30 billion surplus in Malaysia's favour.
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Neither government nor opposition has any interest in upsetting that. Since the end of the Cold War, Malaysia's governing elite has courted China both economically and diplomatically – and entered a mutually fulfilling relationship. China has opened its doors to Malaysian companies and Malaysian companies have repaid the favour with investment and job creation. China has even provided development aid despite Malaysia being far wealthier than it on a GDP per head basis. In Putrajaya, the federal administrative centre, the net result is a desire to handle relations with Beijing quietly and without popular pressure. Outside government there's little desire to stoke anti-China feeling either: there are few votes to be won in attacking the country's main source of export earnings. There's no urge to bang drums on streets in protest at intangible violations of national sovereignty in which no territory was lost nor blood shed. In the 2013 Pew Survey, Malaysia was (with Pakistan) the world's most pro-China country, with 81 per cent of the population having a positive view (compared to 55 per cent for the US).