Scarborough Shoal \u2014The Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) has passed a final judgment on the case that the Philippines unilaterally brought before the PCA concerning, among other issues, the legality of China\u2019s \u201cnine-dash line\u201d claim over the South China Sea under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).\u00a0Both the Philippines and China are signatories to UNCLOS; however, China challenged the arbitration process and declared that she will not abide by the PCA\u2019s ruling, which makes one wonder: If China ignores the PCA\u2019s ruling, what are the Philippines\u2019 options and what would the U.S. do to protect her national interests?<\/p>\n
A few days prior to the UN ruling, Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte told media that he was not keen about confronting China and had expressed doubts that the U.S. is committed to side with the Philippines over the Scarborough Shoal territorial disputes.<\/p>\n
During the U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg\u2019s courtesy visit on June 13, Duterte asked him bluntly, \u201cAre you with us or are you not with us?\u201d Goldberg\u2019s response was: \u201cOnly if you are attacked.\u201d\u00a0Clearly, what Goldberg said was true because the U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) says so.\u00a0In other words, if Duterte decides to reclaim the Scarborough Shoal and meets Chinese resistance, Duterte would be on his own.\u00a0 And what weaponry does the Philippines have to fight China?\u00a0Two coast guard ships and two fighter jets?\u00a0Forget it.<\/p>\n
So, whatever the outcome of the arbitration case is, Duterte is not going to war against China, which makes sense.\u00a0But the Scarborough Shoal has geostrategic values to both China and the U.S.<\/p>\n
In my column, \u201cTensions heat up in the SCS\u201d (May 13, 2016)<\/em>, I wrote:\u00a0\u201cIt is obvious that China wants to end America\u2019s dominance in the SCS; thus, taking full control of the Indo-Asia-Pacific region, economically, militarily, and politically.\u00a0It will be the end of Pax Americana and the advent of Pax Sinica.\u00a0And this begs the question:\u00a0What would the U.S. do in the event that China went ahead with the reclamation of Scarborough Shoal?\u201d <\/em>Or, what would Obama\u2019s successor \u2014 Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton \u2014 do?\u00a0 That is the $64,000 question.<\/p>\n Worst-case scenario<\/p>\n Indeed, a new U.S. administration under Clinton or Trump would be faced with multifaceted scenarios.\u00a0 And the worst-case scenario would be: What if Russia attacked the Baltic States, China attacked the Senkakus and reclaimed the Scarborough Shoal, and North Korea attacked South Korea?<\/p>\n But going to war is like a game of poker.\u00a0If the other players sense that you have a weak hand, they\u2019d bluff you.\u00a0If they think that you have a strong hand, they\u2019d fold theirs.\u00a0Obama isn\u2019t a good player in the game of geopolitics.\u00a0He has yet to beat Putin.\u00a0And Chinese President Xi Jinping proved to be a good bluffer and Obama lost several islands to Xi in the Spratly archipelago.\u00a0And Kim Jong-un is an all-time bluffer.\u00a0He has been playing a hand with nothing but a lowball in a high stakes game.<\/p>\n At the end of the day, with all these trouble spots around the world, can America engage Russia, China, and North Korea all at once?\u00a0The answer is yes because America is still the sole superpower in the world today.\u00a0 Putin admitted that recently in a televised interview with Fareed Zakaria of CNN.\u00a0Indeed, with 11 aircraft carrier battle groups, America can project power anywhere in the world.\u00a0But the question is: Is America prepared for war? (<\/strong>PerryDiaz@gmail.com<\/strong><\/a>) <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Scarborough Shoal \u2014The Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) has passed a final judgment on the case that the Philippines unilaterally brought before the PCA concerning, among other issues, the legality of China\u2019s \u201cnine-dash line\u201d claim over the South China Sea under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).\u00a0Both the Philippines and China […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,70],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4560"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4560\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}