Beware of joint patrols in the South China Sea

THE Taiwan war threat is supposed to be today’s topic, but the above headline issue is far more crucial to Philippine and even regional security, especially if those envisioned naval patrols by the United States and the Philippines lead to full implementation of the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA — more on this later).

Moreover, despite media brouhaha about war over Taiwan, which grabs the eyeballs and is prized by purveyors of news, certain military and economic factors diminish the war appetite of the paramount protagonists, America and China.

For starters and perhaps the biggest factor, both superpowers are facing serious economic challenges. Like many nations across the planet, the US is grappling with the highest inflation in decades, leading to successive interest-rate hikes, which have now led to negative growth in the first two quarters of the year.

That satisfies the technical definition of recession, though economists are watching if US job creation also drops, along with a few other economic factors. Bottom line: war with China over Taiwan would further jack up prices, especially of countless Chinese-made consumer goods imported, further stanching US and global growth.

War would also hit China very badly, blocking its exports to the West and Asia and compounding economic pressures it already faces. Even now, growth looks set to weaken with the manufacturing slowdown in some regions because of labor shortages, supply-chain problems and US trade sanctions, plus the slow business revival after pandemic lockdowns in major cities. And the property crash over the past year is seen as rivaling Japan’s 1990s collapse, which led to a decade of nil growth.

On the military side, while China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has made immense strides since the last major Taiwan crisis in the mid-1990s, so has Taiwan’s armed forces, escalating the expected cost and casualties of invasion.

For its part, the US still wields superior military might, especially technologically. But even American strategists concede that China has mammoth advantages in nearby areas, and US defense upgrading to erode them would be in place only in the 2030s.

All these war-dampening views, however, may prove wishful thinking if Taiwan takes clear steps toward independence, including the possible election of an independence-seeking leader as president in 2024. Then Beijing’s recent white paper on Taiwan, which stresses peaceful reunification, may prove to be false hope.

From fonops to EDCA

Turning to the headline topic, which is not unrelated to USChina frictions over Taiwan, joint naval patrols by US and Philippine vessels, mooted for years, is making news again with both Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Secretary Enrique Manalo and Department of National Defense (DND) spokesman Arsenio Andolong talking about it.

It went nowhere under thenPresident Rodrigo Duterte, probably because it would swing us to Washington’s side against Beijing, especially in the US Navy’s “freedom of navigation operations” (fonops) near or in Chineseclaimed areas and waters.

There may also have been valid concern about joint patrols sparking incidents that push us deeper into America’s embrace, including full EDCA implementation for allowing massive US forces in the country with access to five military bases.

Imagine an encounter between Chinese vessels and a US-Philippines patrol in which a Filipino Navyman is hurt or killed or a Philippine boat is damaged or sunk. Just as the loss of Scarborough Shoal prompted