The dispute between the Philippines and China over a South Pacific island group known as the Spratlys heated up when Philippines President Benigno Aquino III declared that his country would defend its sovereign territory.
According to the Associated Press
, Aquino said to a meeting of the Philippines House of Representatives in an address broadcast nationwide, "We do not wish to increase tensions with anyone, but we must let the world know that we are ready to protect what is ours."China has been conducting incursions into the Spratlys, which it regards as its historic territory, since February, including an island known as Recto or Reed Bank that China claims is not even part of the Spratlys. In one incident Chinese patrol boats chased away a Philippines oil exploration vessel from the vicinity of Reed Bank.
While the Spratlys are a barren group of islands with no intrinsic value, they do set astride large deposits of oil and natural gas, as well as lush fishing grounds. The islands are also in the middle of an important sea lane.
Besides beefing up the Philippines Coast Guard with patrol boats, helicopters and weapons, President Aquino has proposed taking the matter of the Spratlys to the United Nations. No doubt fearing that this would bring in the United States, the Philippines' principle ally, China has opposed this, preferring bilateral talks.
According to Henry Kissinger's recent book "On China" ever since the establishment of the communist regime, the Chinese has aggressively asserted what it regards as its territorial rights. This strategy has touched off two crises in the Taiwan Straits during the 1950s, an intervention in the Korean War, a border war with India in the early 1960s, a war with Vietnam in the 1980s, and continuing tensions with Russia and Taiwan, the latter of which China regards as a breakaway, rebel province, albeit one that has been an independent nation for over 60 years.
The reason behind this strategy is to assert China's status as the dominate country in East Asia and also to take revenge for numerous slights suffered at the hands of European colonial powers in the 19th century.
When the United States pushes back, as it has over Taiwan, China generally backs down, its point having been made, though with an idea of asserting itself at a future date. Unfortunately, distracted as it is by domestic concerns and wars in the Middle East, the Obama administration seems to be asleep where the Spratlys dispute is concerned.
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