US will not risk conflict with China - Blueboard

For the past weeks my students and friends at the Ateneo and La Salle have repeatedly asked me whether I thought the United States would come to our aid if “push comes to shove” in the standoff between China and the Philippines over parts of the Spratly Archipelago and Scarborough Shoal (Panatag to Filipinos and Huayan to the Chinese). 

At a recent Rotary Club meeting, a lawyer-friend suggested the US was obligated to come to our aid under the 1951 RP-US Mutual Defense Treaty while another invoked the “special relationship” between the US and the Philippines as the basis for his belief that the US would help her former colony in case of a military tussle with China.

If “assistance” means sending an ultimatum to China to “cease and desist” her aggressive posturing in the disputed area, deploying military vessels to interdict or drive away Chinese ships, or perhaps act as some kind of an international gendarmerie, in support of the Philippines, then I am afraid that the answer is a resounding no. For one thing, unlike the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) of which the United States is a major signatory, there is nothing in the language of the RP-US Mutual Defense Treaty which contemplates “automatic retaliation” in the event of an “external attack.” 

In contrast to Article 5 of the Washington Treaty which provides for “automatic retaliation” in the event of an external attack on any NATO member country, Article 5 of the RP-US Mutual Defense Treaty provides that any or all assistance a signatory might choose to undertake shall be made in accordance with “their Constitutional processes.” 

In the case of the United States, this would mean going to Congress to seek its approval or if necessary, ask for a declaration of war (under Article I of the US Constitution, only Congress has the power to declare war), a virtually impossibility at the present time, given the prevailing mood in the federal legislature especially in the House of Representatives where the balance of power is held by 89 ultra-conservative and anti-Obama Tea Party members. 

Moreover, given widespread public disaffection over the war in Afghanistan and the Iraq War, I suggest that there is little if any public support for any new foreign military adventures, let alone against the most populous nation on earth.

Does this mean that the US will tamp down on her use of soft-power diplomacy including exhorting the Philippines and other Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members who claim certain portions of the Spratly Archipelago to take a unified stand and “speak with one voice,” as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham-Clinton urged ASEAN heads of state during the organization’s most recent meeting in Pnom Phenh, Cambodia or symbolic gestures like the recent visit of the CINCPAC, Admiral Samuel J Locklear, to the Philippines? No. Indeed, these initiatives are bound to continue into the indefinite future. 

But why is the US reluctant to up the ante, as it were, and for example,dispatch elements of the Seventh Fleet to the disputed waters to disperse the flotilla of Chinese fishing, naval and quasi-military vessels that have camped out in the area for several weeks now? Because to do so would be much too risky and is clearly not in the best “national interests” of the United States. 

It must be noted that the US has not only become China’s major trading partner and there are hundreds of billions of US investments in China; conversely, China has hundreds of billions of dollars of investments in the US in the form of bank deposits, treasury notes, bonds, stocks and other forms of commercial paper. Indeed, so extensive is the Chinese economic presence in the US that if China were to yank out a significant percentage of these investments, the US economy -- which is already in a rather precarious state -- could be sent into lethal tailspin.

But perhaps the major reason for the US’ reluctance to take on China in her own backyard is the fact that with her renewed economic clout -- having since dislodged Japan as the world’s second largest economic power -- China’s military capability and reach has grown dramatically in recent years as well. As the world’s dominant land power with nearly five million men and women under arms and several million more in reserve, in addition to being a full-fledged nuclear power, it would be the height of mendacity for the United States or any other country for that matter, located halfway around the globe,to engage China in a major land war in Asia. In fine, much as I would like to share the optimism of my students and friends, I am afraid that the scenario of the US coming to the rescue of the Philippines is unrealistic and a non-starter for one very simple and basic reason -- going to war with China or risking a serious rupture in Sino-American relations over the Spratly Archipelago is simply not in the “national interests” of the United States.



Guest columnist Benjamin N Muego is a visiting professor of Political Science to the Loyola Schools of the Ateneo de Manila University and a visiting professor of American and International Studies to De La Salle University in Manila.