The Truth About The Philippines’ New Strategy Against China

You may have heard that tensions have been rising recently in the South China Sea. And they are—but you’re also hearing about them more often than you used to. The Philippine Coast Guard has launched a new strategy against China’s aggressive actions in the South China Sea: publicizing the truth. By using video and eyewitness accounts to document China’s harassment of its personnel and civilian populations, the Philippines is placing diplomatic and public pressure on China, making it increasingly difficult for Beijing to defend its claims of peaceful action in the South China Sea. By highlighting the illegality of China’s actions alongside the facts, the Philippines is also using lawfare to undermine China’s legitimacy before the world.

Under the Philippines’ previous President, Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines preferred to quietly handle many of China’s provocations, sometimes waiting weeks or months to release information that they occurred. Since last Spring’s election of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. who has proven less wiling to appease China, the Philippines has begun to more frequently publicize China’s aggressive actions. The Philippines has filed 461 diplomatic protests against China since 2016 over China’s aggression in what the Philippines terms the West Philippine Sea, the portion of the South China Sea that falls in the Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). As of the end of February, 77 of those protests had been made under the administration of Bongbong Marcos Jr.. Under Duterte’s administration, the Philippines would sometimes sit on information for weeks or longer before publicizing China’s transgressions. Now, the Philippine Coast Guard is more likely to spotlight the truth in real time, and diplomats are more likely to act accordingly.

Under Marcos, the Philippine Coast Guard has intensified patrols of the West Philippine Sea and made efforts to document and publicize China’s behavior. The Philippine Coast Guard Commodore, Jay Tarriela, has said that “I’d like to emphasize that the best way to address Chinese ‘gray zone’ activities in the West Philippine Sea is to expose it,” referring specifically to China’s use of ostensibly civilian research and fishing vessels, often part of its maritime militia, to perform military activities. He explained that the strategy, “allows like-minded states to express condemnation and reproach which puts Beijing in a spotlight,” he said. “Chinese actions in the shadows are now checked, which also forced them to come out in the open or to publicly lie.” The Coast Guard has also invited Western journalists aboard its craft to witness Chinese aggression firsthand.

The Philippine Coast Guard has had plenty of opportunities to enact its new strategy, and has already seen results. On February 6, for example, a Chinese Coast Guard ship fired a military-grade laser against a Philippine patrol boat, temporarily blinding some crew members. The Philippine patrol boat was on its way to resupply the BRP Sierra Madre, a decrepit World War II-era warship that the Philippines grounded at Second Thomas Shoal in 1999 in order to reinforce its claim to the area, which is disputed by China. In 2016, an international arbitration tribunal found that Second Thomas Shoal is a low-tide elevation that falls squarely within the Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone. While a low-tide elevation does not generate a territorial sea or claims of sovereignty, the Philippines has the exclusive rights to economic and natural resources in the area under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The tribunal invalidated China’s claims of sovereignty and economic rights over the area.

In response to the Philippines’ accusations, China countered that its coast guard acted “professionally and with restraint” within Chinese waters, and used a harmless laser to track the Philippine boat’s movement. The Coast guard released a video of the incident, which told a different story. Many news outlets paired discussion of the video with mention of the arbitral proceedings, bolstering the legitimacy of the Philippines’ position. Armed with that footage, as well as the law, President Marcos Jr. summoned China’s ambassador to Manila over the incident. The U.S. also released a statement rebuking China for the incident and reminding China—and the world—of the arbitral decision and its defense treaty commitments to the Philippines.

The Philippines have adopted a strategy of information lawfare, the purposeful use of law to control the narrative of a conflict. The Philippines is purposefully undermining the legitimacy of China’s cause for aggressive actions—China’s unlawful claim of Chinese sovereignty over Philippine waters or waters in its EEZ—as well as the illegality of its disproportionately aggressive tactics. In doing so, the Phillipines is able to catch China outright in its lies, publicize the illegality of Chinese actions, and bolster its own legitimacy before its own population and the world. Perhaps the Philippines is taking a cue from Ukraine, which has masterfully used its lawfare strategy as well as social media and media writ large to garner popular support from all over the world. In Ukraine, and now in the South China Sea, we may be witnessing the escalation of a new conflict, which will be fought in the information realm as much as on the battlefield.

As I have noted elsewhere, it is much easier to win a war when you have already prevailed in the court of public opinion. Hopefully, kinetic warfare will never occur in the South China Sea. But the players are getting ready by preparing the legal and information battlespace. To garner public support for a conflict, the parties will need to win in the courtroom and in the media both first and last. Ultimately, the courts of law and public opinion matter most for victory in the history books. Since its the landmark 2016 arbitration victory, the Philippines has been at the cutting edge of lawfare strategy. Its new strategy of combining lawfare with information warfare will make it more lethal for the long term.