Chinese Coast Guard personnel destroyed equipment of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and pointed weapons at Filipino troops during the June 17, 2024 resupply mission to Ayungin Shoal. Photo courtesy Armed Forces of the Philippines/file 

CANBERRA — China will “continue to exert more control” over the South China Sea in the coming years unless the Philippines finds a way to have “more consistency” in asserting its sovereignty and policies in the West Philippine Sea, an analyst said on Tuesday.

While President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s administration has been actively pushing back against China’s illegal presence and aggression in the West Philippine Sea, the Philippines’ political system does not guarantee that Manila will always keep this stance against Beijing, said Bryce Wakefield, chief executive officer of the Australian Institute of International Affairs.

“At the moment, Marcos is playing a very strong end but that’s not gonna last forever,” Wakefield told ABS-CBN News on the sidelines of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung’s “Australia and the Pacific Security Conference 2024.”

“But that needs to be consistent… It cannot be that China can just think and wait for three years until Marcos will be gone, and some other guy who they can push around will be in his place,” he said.

Philippines challenges China over South China Sea at ASEAN meet

Inconsistencies in Manila’s policies in the West Philippine Sea and how it deals with China are deeply rooted in its political structure, security and geopolitical analysts agreed during the conference.

The Philippines is a democratic country that elects its president every six years, while China for over a decade has been under the leadership of President Xi Jinping, who pushed make his country a “maritime great power.”

“The Philippines is a democracy and it should continue to be a democracy and all that it entails, but that also means that its positions have been inconsistent,” Wakefield said.

In the early 2000s, China described the Philippines as a “good friend” as then-Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who highlighted trade opportunities with Asia’s largest economy.

Arroyo was succeeded by President Benigno Aquino III, who filed an international arbitration case against China in 2013 after Beijing started to reclaim and militarize shoals and features are well within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.

After 3 years, Manila won the landmark arbitration case as the court stressed that Beijing’s sweeping claim in the South China Sea had no legal basis, but Aquino’s successor Rodrigo Duterte refused to implement the ruling, and instead forged closer ties with China and other countries that were not critical of his violent anti-drug war program.

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After Duterte’s term, the Marcos Jr. administration vowed “not to lose a square inch” of Philippine territorial waters to China and any other state.

“At the moment, it (Philippines) is obviously very vocal about the incursions into its exclusive economic zone, but it hasn’t always been so,” Wakefield said.

“If it goes off a different government and tries to negotiate with China to sideline this issue, then I really think it will really lose the support of the international community,” he said.

Last month, Marcos Jr. warned other Southeast Asian leaders that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) “diminishes” the longer the regional bloc remains relatively silent on China’s abuses and illegal activities in the South China Sea.

“We call on all ASEAN member states not to turn a blind eye to the aggressive, coercive, and illegal actions of an external power against an ASEAN member state for such actions undermines their claims of genuine adherence to our core values,” the Philippine President said during his intervention at the ASEAN Leaders Retreat.

“They run counter to one of ASEAN's purposes: to unite the region as a bulwark against external threats and conflicts, and ensure that each ASEAN Member State can lead its national existence free from interference, subversion, and coercion,” he said.

“Silence in the face of these violations diminishes ASEAN,” he added.

Despite Marcos Jr.’s resolve to push back against Chinese aggression, “piece by piece, China has and will continue to exert more and more control over the region,” the Australian Institute of International Affairs chief said.

“When the Philippine government did not stand behind the ruling pursued by the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea, it basically scratched the hope or whatsoever of ASEAN unity on this issue,” he said.

“The capacity of the Philippines to defend itself is strengthened by others who are not necessarily directly involved in the dispute with China,” he said.

While “there is no singular solution that will solve this problem” in the South China Sea, other countries still “need more consistency in Philippine politics,” Wakefield said.

“Engaging with ASEAN and trying to get ASEAN to take a stance against China is always going to be a hard sell,” he said, noting that several Southeast Asian economies are heavily dependent on trade with China.

“I think the best hope for the Philippines is to continue to stress that its positions are in line with international law to convince not only ASEAN partners but external partners,” he said.

“It needs to consistently declare that the justification for this position is grounded on a universal concept of law.”

Marcos Jr.’s term ends in 2028 and there is no guarantee if the next Philippine leader will commit to the his push back against China.