Journal of International Studies

MANILA - Nearly 600 kilometers southwest of the Philippine capital, workers are building an access road to link the mainland of Luzon to Oyster Bay on the island province of Palawan. The pristine island is a major tourist destination, but the project is not aimed at luring foreign travelers, rather to transform the bay into what officials are referring to as a "mini Subic".  Like Subic Bay, north of Manila and once the site of the United States' largest military facility in the Asia-Pacific, Oyster Bay's cove includes a deep natural harbor capable of hosting large vessels, including warships. Unlike Subic, Oyster Bay opens directly on the South China Sea, strategically situated 150 kilometers from hotly contested and potentially hydrocarbon-rich maritime territories in the Spratly Islands.  President Benigno Aquino's government has allocated around 500 million pesos (US$12 million) to Oyster Bay's initial groundwork, with piers, dry docks and ship...

The Obama administration can’t seem to resist the temptation to meddle in the territorial disputes between China and its neighbors over islands (and probable underlying oil and gas riches) in the South China Sea. The latest incident began earlier this year when the Philippines filed an unprecedented arbitration case—over Beijing’s strenuous objections—regarding the issue with the United Nations’ Convention on the Law of the Sea. Instead of remaining quiet on the matter, as prudence would dictate, Secretary of State John Kerry ostentatiously weighed in at the East Asia Summit on October 10 in Brunei. In remarks to leaders  at the gathering, including Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, Kerry tacitly backed Manila’s arbitration ploy and its underlying territorial claim. “All claimants have a responsibility to clarify and align their claims with international law. They can engage in arbitration and other means of peaceful negotiations.” In a passage implicitly rebuking Beijing’s extrao...

U.S. President Barack Obama (center) at the 2012 East Asia Summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Image: Xunhua There can be no denying the fact that U.S. President Barack Obama’s cancellation of his trip to Southeast Asia, October 6-12, where he was scheduled to attend to attend the  APEC Economic Leaders meeting  in Bali, Indonesia, then the East Asia Summit  in Brunei, followed by visits to Malaysia and the Philippines, is extremely unfortunate. This was to have been only the second time that a US president has gone solely to Southeast Asia, highlighting the growing significance of this region to the United States, primarily because of the growing U.S.-ASEAN economic ties and the central role that ASEAN has in Asian institutional building and multilateral engagement. Last year, President Obama missed the APEC Economic Leaders meeting in Vladivostok, Russia, due to the then pending U.S. election. A popular mantra that one often hears around Washington, D.C. regarding As...

The world’s leaders can’t seem to escape the thorny issue of how to resolve the territorial disputes between China and its neighbors. At both September’s UN General Assembly in New York and the annual APEC summit, leaders couldn’t escape either venue without discussion of Asia’s contested waters. What is evident from these meetings is that nearly all of the countries involved prefer to resolve the territorial disputes internationally, with the aid of multilateral institutions. But the notable exception is China. At the UN, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi emphasized his  country’s preference for bilateral resolution , “through negotiation and consultation with countries directly involved.” China’s emphasis on bilateral relationships is evident across the region, in countries like Cambodia and Myanmar, where  large-scale Chinese infrastructure projects are evident . But China’s path has only divided Southeast Asian states and hindered progress in moving forward with a fr...

THE SETTING Southeast Asia came into strategic focus for the U.S. for the first time in World War II as Allied forces fought to roll back Japan’s military occupation. As the post-war era took shape, communist insurgencies bid for power throughout the region. In Southeast Asia the “Cold War” was hot – culminating in the Vietnam War and an American investment of 58,000 lives based on the proposition that the region was of vital strategic importance. But with the end of that war in 1975, U.S. strategic attention turned away from Southeast Asia as rapidly and completely as it had turned toward it 15 years earlier.  The final shoe dropped in 1991 when the U.S. and the Philippines agreed (acrimoniously) to end the lease that authorized U.S. military bases in the Philippines. Southeast effectively fell off Washington’s security map; it became instead a place of high interest to U.S. corporations and banks as the region enjoyed explosive economic growth.   In geopolitical...

Manila claims only part of the South China Sea, but the area it does claim is a core national interest. Contrary to the thinking in certain quarters, the Philippines does not lay claim to the entire South China Sea (SCS), but rather to that smaller area of the SCS off the country’s western seaboard that is well within its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and continental shelf and is known as the West Philippine Sea (WPS). The Philippine government spelled out this difference when President Benigno Aquino Jr. issued  Administrative Order 29  on September 5, 2012, which renamed the maritime areas to the country’s west. The Philippines is an archipelagic, maritime state, which makes the WPS a matter of serious national importance given its strategic location, security implications and resources. The WPS would include the Kalayaan Island Group (part of the larger Spratlys group of features in the SCS), and Bajo de Masinloc, also locally called the Panatag Shoal and in...