Blogger's Notes:
Commentary of an Academic
(Copyright @ 2017 by Chester B Cabalza. All Rights Reserved).
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| Photo courtesy of Wikipedia |
In
a twist of fate, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi agreed to support Manila’s
offer to consider a joint energy exploration in the Reed Bank, an underwater of
8,866 square-kilometer tablemount believed to hold significant oil and gas
deposits in the tension-laden South China Sea. Contrary to China’s threat using
maritime attack to Vietnam of its intent to do a unilateral activity in the
Spartly Islands if drilling continued, as recourse the Southeast Asian
claimant-country immediately halted the plan.
In
the span of one year, President Rodrigo Duterte befriended a giant neighbor, visited
China consecutively, and in between mounted an independent foreign policy to
diversify relations with Beijing. In a struggle to repair the damaged
friendship between the two East Asian countries, only July last year when the
Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague ruled out in favour of the petitioner
of the landmark maritime case awarding to the archipelagic state exclusive sovereign
rights to access offshore hydrocarbons and natural gas within its
370-kilometers exclusive economic zone where the Reed Bank is located.Given
these antecedents, the big question that summons scores of observers is, will
this be the beginning of a brighter future for the estranged Asian neighbors?
In
the past years, contest over potential hydrocarbon resources in the South China Sea
has catalyzed unilateral oil explorations undertaken by several claimant
states, particularly the Philippines, Vietnam, and Malaysia as well as their
respective legislation of sovereignty claims such as baselines and continental
shelf submissions. The Philippines successfully discovered a natural gas field
in 1992 building the Malampaya Natural Gas to Power Project, a joint government
and private sector undertaking, considered as the single most expensive project
of the Philippine government. The gas reservoir is located underwater at 3,000
meters in depth with estimated recoverable volume at 2.7 trillion standard
cubic feet. Nonetheless, oil and gas reserves at the Reed Bank are deemed to be
larger than those in Malampaya.
Only
last month, President Duterte sought the permission of Chinese President Xi
Jinping to initiate a unilateral energy drill in Reed Bank, but to his
counterpart’s dismay, the Filipino firebrand leader was threatened with war. The
revived talks for joint development sprouted more than three decades ago when
Chinese paramount leader Deng Xiaoping pitched the idea to the Philippines’
first female president Corazon Aquino. But the schizophrenic relationship
turned sour when China started flexing its muscles using a historical claim to
justify Beijing’s territorial expansion in the South China Sea cordoned by controversial
dotted lines but nullified by the international arbitral court that sparked high-pressure
flashpoints and protests among six other sovereign states which lay overlapping
claims in the world’s busiest trade routes. As a defense mechanism, former Philippine
President Benigno Aquino Jr. strategically countered China’s
military projections by resorting to lawfare who deemed was best for the
archipelagic country at that time to operationalize a territorial defense
strategy.
China
claims almost all the territories in the South China Sea including the Spartlys
archipelago, a group of more than 750 reefs, islets, atolls, cays, and islands.
The Philippines currently controls five islands, two reefs and two sandbars in
the Spartlys. Consequently, unearthing what lies beneath the abundant resources
in the contested maritime features, is inevitably viewed as ecologically and
economically difficult affecting the still contentious maritime and territorial
clash concerning the region’s security.
According
to the Philippine Department of Energy, the oil drill at Reed Bank may resume
before the yearend. It was announced last July 12, coincidentally the same day
when the Philippines noted the first year anniversary of Manila’s legal triumph
against Beijing in the maritime row. It cannot be denied that hydrocarbon
resources are becoming attractive and lucrative for both the Chinese and
Filipinos given each state’s economic resurgence. China, already a major
importer of fuels and minerals, rapidly gets equipped for such a competition;
robed with highly-energy and resources-intensive economy, but the resource
supply irregularities may be fatal as a result.
The
growing geopolitical volatility in the region, especially in light of the
Philippines’ pivot to China can be glanced at into both scientific and artistic
forms of national security formulation.Veracity
of the current security relationship between Manila and Beijing has been in
opposing ends, however, with the renewed warming up relations and blossoming
economic opportunities as evidenced by a possible joint oil exploration need to
be scrutinized conscientiously, giving us a closer glance that recent
affirmative episodes are determinants of the will of change to heal fragmented
disparities in terms of national interests over sovereignty issues and
territorial integrity.
Furthermore
maritime disputes are not the sum-total of the bilateral relations of claimant
states of the islands, rocks, and cays in the South China Sea. Beyond
diplomatic negotiations, there are mutual interests that must transcend beyond
the issue. One side of the coin permeates a joint development that certainly
translates into cooperation. Entertaining the iota of cooperation connotes a
process of confidence building mechanism. Cooperation thus occurs when actors
adjust their behaviour to the actual and anticipated preferences of others
through a process of policy coordination. Policy adjustments may often be
negotiated to synchronized group agreements with each actor’s preferences. Once
individual and group policies become more compatible, a certain act of
cooperation may be completed.
