Philippines’ dithering over South China Sea clash fuelled by US doubts

The dithering and seemingly confused statements from Philippine officials, however, are a reflection of fears of unwanted escalation and, crucially, doubts over the extent of America’s commitment to come to the country’s aid.

02:34

Chinese and Philippine ships clash in first incident under Beijing’s new coast guard law

The problem is that Washington has a long history of equivocating on its defence obligations to the Philippines. In the early 1970s, US secretary of state Henry Kissinger pressed for a policy of strategic ambiguity by raising “substantial doubts that [a Philippine] military contingent on island in the Spratly group would come within protection” of the Mutual Defence Treaty.

The treaty “may apply in event of attack on [Philippine] forces deployed to third countries”, he clarified, although this would be “fundamentally different from [a] case where deployment is for purpose of enlarging Philippine territory”.

The 1951 treaty is itself riddled with ambiguity, since it only obliges Washington to come to its Southeast Asian ally’s help “to meet the common dangers in accordance with its constitutional processes”.

02:33

US and Philippines conduct annual Balikatan drills amid rising tensions with China

America’s unreliability has begun to alienate the Filipino people. An authoritative survey conducted in late 2016, just months after the election of Beijing-friendly president Rodrigo Duterte, showed that half of the respondents either disagreed (17 per cent) or were undecided (33 per cent) when asked if “security/defence relations with the US have been beneficial to the Philippines” in the context of the South China Sea disputes. If anything, a significant number of those surveyed backed Duterte’s pursuit of warming