From Be(ij)ing pro-China to Be(ij)ing pro-peace

Antonio Contreras

THE shifting discourse is so palpable that only the clueless would not notice it. In fact, the fear of war has always been the subterfuge of those who defend China’s interests. But now they have become more creative, turning themselves into modern-day peaceniks, as if they could emulate the anti-war activism of the hippie generation in the United States that opposed many wars, most prominent of which was the Vietnam War.

There is, however, a fundamental difference. The American peace activists and the movement they engendered across the globe who opposed the Vietnam War, and later other wars such as the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, mobilized against an America which they saw as the aggressor and was waging an unjust war in other lands.

That is not simply the case when China apologists in our midst suddenly appropriate themselves as pro-peace advocates. The Philippines is not the aggressor. In fact, our country is the one under attack. Our ships are being bombarded with water cannons and blinded with military-grade laser beams, even as Filipinos are the ones getting hurt in the process. It is our exclusive economic zone (EEZ) that is being claimed, and our fishers who are being denied access to their livelihood.

The script of their play is just too obvious. These pro-China voices would like us to believe that they are not pushing for any foreign interests, in that they are just merely following the mantra of their principal, former president Rodrigo Duterte, in his pretensions of being an unaligned leader. They rant against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and accuse him of bringing the country closer to the precipice of a shooting war with China for his pro-American stance.

The time is always ripe to call out the elephant in the room. Duterte did not take the country into becoming an unaligned entity. He practically pivoted toward China and away from our traditional allies, including the United States, with which we have a Mutual Defense Treaty. The proof lies in the actions and words of Duterte himself, and it takes a lot of gall for anyone to even claim that such were the actions and words of someone who wanted to be in the diplomatic middle.

These pro-China mouthpieces who are now projecting themselves as angels of peace have always used the threat of war to gaslight us into submitting to China’s designs. For six years, we have been friendly with China. Duterte even allowed China to dictate to us on how we should conduct our foreign relations, and in the process undermined our sovereignty. He agreed to China’s demands to not make a move in the West Philippine Sea beyond what Beijing would allow us.

Duterte agreed not to repair the BRP Sierra Madre marooned at Ayungin Shoal, and thus effectively sentencing it to turn into a rusty twist of metal that would eventually sink. Meanwhile, China continued to build artificial islands and military bases inside our EEZ, as it continued to harass not only our fishers but our troops as well. To appease China, Duterte surrendered our sovereignty and at one time even dismissed the decision of the arbitral panel of the Permanent Court of Arbitration as a mere piece of paper, a view that his online sycophants upheld and propagated in social media and in the minds of their followers.

These are not the actions of an unaligned leader. These are the actions of someone who enabled a bully, perhaps because this was more convenient politically, or that it was a form of payback for some political debt owed, or both.

The country should thank President Marcos, despite his flaws, for having the courage to end such cowardly subservience. Marcos has the political savvy to realize that while it is easy to mouth neutrality and nonalignment for the optics, political reality dictates the objective fact that the best way to deal with bullies is not to feed their sense of superiority, but to impress on them that we can compensate our relative weakness by tapping into the goodwill of our allies. It is an objective fact that the Philippines has a mutual defense treaty with the United States, which has since expressed its commitment to invoke it to defend Philippine sovereignty. But Marcos went beyond the United States and has enlarged the alliance to now include Japan, Australia, France, India, the European Union and Canada, among others.

This is what constitutes deterrence. Contrary to the allegations of the pro-China voices, deterrence maintains peace by impressing on adversaries that any attack will be met with a significant response. Deterrence works under two conditions, namely severity and credibility. Severity is ensured by the threat of retaliation that would inflict harm on the adversary that would outweigh any potential benefit it would gain from attacking. Credibility is achieved when the adversary is made to believe that aggression will certainly trigger retaliation.

The expansion and strengthening of our military alliances with the United States and other countries — seen in the increase in military presence in the West Philippine Sea — the conduct of joint military exercises to simulate real attacks and public announcements of the modernization of our defense forces are effective ways to convey the severity and credibility of our willingness to use force. Contrary to those who see this as war-making, it is in fact a time-tested strategy for ensuring and keeping the peace.

One effective strategy to deterrence is publicly isolating the adversary. President Marcos’ decision to allow journalists to be embedded in our ships and boats has effectively exposed China’s brazen violation of our sovereignty. The veil that used to render their aggression invisible has been effectively lifted for the world to see. China is now scrambling, and this is likely the reason why its apologists are now busy rebranding with their pro-peace mantras. It is a public relations move to serve Beijing’s interests.

It is actually laughable. Those who project their being pro-peace and anti-war are the same enablers who cheered on Duterte when he deployed political violence and the language of war against his own people.