A war with China, the inevitable destiny for the Philippines?

Why would the Philippines in its sane and righteous mind imagine, much more prepare for a war with China over the West Philippine Sea? One can only deduce the brunt of insurmountable military force the Philippines has to bear and suffer if war should ever break out with China. After all, the latter as we know it, is now the second largest economy in the world, and by experts estimate, in a decade or so, China to say the least may achieve parity with, or at most will overtake the United States as the world’s greatest military power. Even more, a Philippine senator had went against the purchase of twelve trainer jets from South Korea, implying the same to be a nonsense endeavor, while favoring instead the helicopter procurement for COIN operations. Also, it is a fact that the Philippine military is at a dismal and sorry state to the point that one could shed tears on the sight of its pathetic condition. With the foregoing, no one really ever has neither the notion nor the contemplation that the Philippines can, and should pick up a fight with China. But is it veritably the inconvenient truth?  Is the Sino-Philippine war a part of nightmarish wild imaginings brought about by amateurish and youthful arrogance; a far-fetched and unthinkable prospect?

Now...here is the most likely scenario; The United Nations arbitration court declared in a resolution that the Chinese claim is illegal and a violation of the international law of the sea. And... that’s about it! The judgement did not go beyond that pronouncement, there's nothing more ... nada. The UN through its court resolution had not dare to include an order for China to vacate what has been taken from the Philippines. It was the UN's act of prudence and caution, so as not to compromise the world body towards any adversarial act against China. To do otherwise, will conditioned the UN to go to war (sanction is an act of war) against China (if and when China chooses to disobey) through the UN Security Council which China is currently a powerful member. It all boiled down to the point that the only purpose of the UN resolution (if ever it will be the case) is to shame China via world opinion rather than calling for the world to police China.

But everyone and every nation had seen and felt China’s callousness. More often than not, it has never been sensitive to world opinion. Through reverse engineering it has copied and cloned almost every single design and technology in the world without paying a dime, and the people of the world even regarded China as a nation that thrives on copying, but to no avail, opinions and comments had not stopped China, and no nation was able to do anything about China’s technology cloning. Among others, it is China’s intentional ineptness, indifference and the devil may care attitude that propelled itself as an economic and military power. It is among their valuable asset. How else then, if ever, can a UN resolution be enforce and by whom?

Let us bear in mind that that the US has a different stake at the South China Sea viz a viz the Philippines. Its interest is freedom of navigation, so they say, and it is apparent that the Chinese is not interested in interfering with that aspect for the time being. China's Area Defense Identification Zone or ADIZ is more of a defense move to arrest the US nosiness. China’s interest is to have a control over that sea lane so that it can also freely navigate and operate on that body of water for economic expansion and military purposes. The occupation of Philippine main land mass can never be a part of China’s plan. Now, if the US and the maritime industry will not be bothered by China in the waters of South China Sea and vice versa, then both will be happy and gay. A shaky but peaceful co-existence may prevail. The US will unlikely "rock the boat" so to speak. But what about the Philippines? Guess it will just be looking left to right and right to left while trying to digest what happened. The West Philippine Sea, its atoll and islets are in Chinese hands, while the US continues to maintain its presence to project to the world that it is still an economic and military power to reckon with, and ancilliary to that, is to pre-empt encroachment on main Philippine territory that would clearly fall under those protected by the Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT). The idea is to prevent the US from being drag into a war that does not serve its principal interest. Voila! The status quo. A situation that would put the Philippines to a great disadvantage since by gradualism and passivity, it may unwittingly give up the contested territory, and … that will be the end of it.

In that light, will the Philippines in its meekness eventually surrender its claim to the status quo, to the silent and unspoken mutual understanding between China and the US? Can the Philippines justify upon historical reckoning that it failed to preserve its territory on account of inadequate or incapable military? In the aforementioned scenario what is the stand of the Philippines? Who should enforce the UN resolution? Well, by sheer right and obligation, its none other than the Philippines. Will the Philippines then find the assertion and drive to change the informal status quo? Does it have the self determination to break the Chinese hold, forcing the US to similarly break away? Is the Philippine resolve based solely on a credible military so that it cannot do a thing until everything is taken away? Can it instead inflict a strike on Chinese occupied position and start a war, even knowing that it cannot win back the territory it had lost? Will the US even allow the Philippines to assert itself?

In the Art of War authored by a Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu he aptly said and I quote “never fight a war that cannot be won”. One cannot agree more, at least in the eyes of those who believe that winning is measured by the neutralization and decimation of the physical. The Philippines should never fight China if it will place the value of winning on the physical. But if, and when, the Philippines will put the value of winning on the abstract, then it must and it should fight that war. Honor and respect will be the prize, and it will surely be won. Succeeding generations of young Filipinos would never be prouder (instead of being ashamed). Proud of their forefathers who had put up not just a fight, but a damn good one to protect what is theirs ...their legacy. The Philippines may lose the physical battle to obliteration, but no doubt it will win the hearts of the world, the dignity will be resurrected and restored in the hearts and mind of Filipinos. In that war, the winner will be the loser and the loser will be the winner.


(Writers note: The characteristics of the circumstances and events in the scenario discussed here do actually exist)