（De La Salle University Distinguished Professor Department of International Studies Renato Cruz De Castro）
The South China Sea is the site for China’s integrated maritime campaign for expansion against its smaller and militarily weaker Southeast Asian neighbors. China’s long-term goal to earn international recognition and legitimacy for its unilateral territorial claims over the vast marine terrain, several surface and subsurface land features, and natural resources above and below the seabed. China deploys its three powerful maritime services in its expansionist and coercive maritime campaign against the littoral Southeast Asia states. On the front line is the People’s Liberation Army’s Navy (PLAN), with its numerous and advanced naval vessels to give it with the escalatory option of the threat or actual use of force. Behind the PLAN is the Chinese Coast Guard (CCG), which provides the occasional presence of Chinese maritime forces in the disputed waters. Behind the PLAN and the CCG, is the People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia (PAFMM) is tasked with maintaining a persistent and intrusive presence in the contested maritime terrain of the South China Sea.
The PLAN and the CCG operate to normalize their patrols to assert China’s expansive rights and interests in the South China Sea and, if necessary, respond to sudden maritime incidents involving the navies and coast guards of the smaller Southeast Asian states. The PLAN, the CCG, and maritime militias are tasked to advance China’s naval, and economic expansion in the South China Sea while obstructing its smaller neighboring states’ lawful economic and navigational activities. China’s integrated maritime campaign for expansion seeks two objectives: a) de facto—or the imposition of a state of affairs based on raw power and use of force; b) de jure—earning the legal recognition of its sovereignty over the South China Sea through international law.
In 2013, the Philippines filed a case in the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) to deny China the possibility that it could accomplish the second goal of its integrated maritime expansion—the legitimacy of its expansive naval claim in the South China Sea. In 2016, the Arbitral Tribunal on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) decided that China’s legal basis for its expansive claim—the nine-dash-line a completely untenable claim because it has no basis in international law. The tribunal ruled that since China became a party to the UNCLOS, it could not legally claim to have historic rights in areas beyond 12 nautical miles from its coast. The tribunal further pointed out that there was no evidence to support China’s landmark claim in the South China Sea. By ruling that China’s nine-dash line claim has no legal basis and is groundless, July 12, 2016, it has effectively deprived China of any chance to gain de jure control of the South China Sea.
Even before he assumed the presidency, Mr. Ferdinand Marcos announced, in an interview before his inauguration on June 30, 2022, that he would assert the Philippines’ territorial rights over the West Philippine Sea. He said he would talk with China consistently with a firm voice about the two countries’ territorial dispute. He also declared that he would use the July 2016 arbitral awards against China’s expansive and sweeping claims in the South China Sea to assert his country’s territorial rights.
On July 12, 2022, Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo announced that the Philippines would uphold the July 12, 2016, arbitral ruling as it is one of the twin anchors of the country’s policy and actions on the West Philippine Sea. He added that the awards affirmed to the community of nations that the rule of law prevails. That stability, peace, and progress can only be attained when founded on a rules-based legal order on the oceans, as it should be everywhere else. In the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA’s) July 12, 2022 statement commemorating the sixth anniversary of the arbitral award and the 40th anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), Secretary Manalo declared that compliance with UNCLOS in its entirety is critical to ensuring global and regional peace and the fair and sustainable use of the oceans.
Since 2023, President Marcos has challenged China’s maritime expansion by a vigorous balancing policy based on the July 12 arbitral ruling. Specifically, this balancing policy entails building up the Philippine military’s external defense capabilities, enhancing its alliance with the U.S. by increasing American strategic presence in the Philippines and fostering security arrangements with other American allies like South Korea, Japan, and Australia, and more recently, adopting the Comprehensive Archipelagic Defense Concept (CADC).
Philippine Secretary of National Defense Gilberto Teodoro announced the gist of CADC in January 2024. According to him, the CADC aims to address the Philippines’ strategic vulnerabilities and enhance the AFP’s capability to address national interests through certain long-term plans. The concept is premised on the assumption that as an archipelagic country, the Philippines’ land security mass is limited while the population is increasing, causing the need for resources to expand exponentially.
CADC provides the following measures: a) transforming the country’s security paradigm; b) strengthening the AFP’s overall military capabilities; and c) leveraging its alliance with its ally, the U.S., and like-minded security partners. All these efforts aim to enable the Philippines to secure its sea lanes of communication and maritime territories, including the country’s EEZ.
CADC also requires the Philippines to strengthen its alliance and security partnerships with the U.S. and other American regional allies. The Philippines engages in arms build-up and, more significantly, in alliance formation and coalition to constrain Chinese maritime expansion in the South China Sea. The Philippines expects that a superpower ally and several security partners that can balance China's growing power, which the Philippine military cannot possibly handle. Thus, CADC requires the Philippines to facilitate greater American strategic access to its territory and, in the process, link its force modernization with its alliance and security partnerships. It necessitates the Philippines to seriously engage the U.S. on how it can assist in integrating its battle networks and strengthen its air and sea capabilities, which would help offset the PLA’s efforts to destabilize the region’s military balance
CADC incorporates President Marcos’ view that China’s aggressive and expansionist activities aimed at pursuing its 10-dash line claim in the South China Sea is not only a blatant disregard to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and to the July 12, 2016 Arbitral Tribunal Ruling. It is a significant strategic threat to Philippine national security. It directs the AFP to develop and project its capabilities up to the Philippines’ EEZ and expand the country’s strategic depth to enhance the defense of its entire archipelagic territory.
CADC’s long-term goal is to guarantee the unimpeded and peaceful exploration and exploitation of all the natural resources with the country’s EEZ for Philippine nationals, corporations, and others authorized by the Philippine government. This inferred a more comprehensive and defiant strategy against Chinese maritime expansion grounded on the July 12, 2016, UNCLOS award to the Philippines.
