The nexus of South China Sea tensions is shifting. Only weeks after agreeing to a “provisional arrangement” for resupply missions to the Philippine warship-turned-military outpost BRP Sierra Madre at Second Thomas Shoal, Beijing is establishing new fronts in its decades-long dispute with Manila. Chinese fighter jets have since performed dangerous maneuvers against Philippine aircraft at Scarborough Shoal. Members of the Philippine Coast Guard have found themselves under siege amid several ramming incidents around Sabina Shoal.
But while Manila has continued to highlight these incidents under the banner of “assertive transparency,” China does not seem to be responding in the way that the Philippines hoped.
As a tool of foreign policy, “naming and shaming” is nothing new. Indeed, scholars such as Wendy He Qingli and Haridas Ramasamy have highlighted Washington’s use of rhetorical coercion to illuminate China’s gray-zone activities since the Obama administration. Taking a page from the United States’ playbook, it was in 2023, spurred on by the likes Raymond Powell and the folks at Project Myoushu, that the Philippines began publicizing maritime incidents in the South China Sea – a clear departure from the policies of the previous government under Rodrigo Duterte. The goal was simple: strengthen national resilience by shaping public opinion; secure international support from like-minded actors and defenders of the “rules-based order”; and increase the reputational costs of Chinese aggression.
Indeed, to the eyes of the Marcos administration in 2023, it was clear that Manila’s greatest advantage rested with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the 2016 arbitral ruling that invalidated Beijing’s sweeping claims over the disputed territories. Philippine officials wanted to leverage the country’s image as an upstanding member of the community of nations as a backdrop to China’s revisionist behavior in the South China Sea. “Assertive transparency” was the logical policy option, and it has worked – to an extent.
By July 2024, 61 percent of Filipinos were calling for a complete withdrawal of Chinese vessels from the disputed territories. Manila has signed several defense cooperation agreements with its partners, including the United States, Japan, France, Germany, and Vietnam. And in every confrontation with Beijing, the international community – from North America and Europe to East Asia and Oceania – has expressed near-unanimous support for the Philippine position. The problem is that, contrary to their proponents’ expectations, these successes did not actually bring about meaningful changes to the status quo.
Months into the assertive transparency initiative China has proven itself more than capable of taking on the Philippines’ reputational punches, countering opposing narratives through its vast (dis)information machinery, regardless of whether anyone actually believes them. While the two countries operate within the same space politically, the different arenas through which they responded ensured that neither side could ever truly gain ground from the other.
This has been less of a problem for Beijing, which, having already consolidated its initial gains in the disputed territories, has the time, resources, and willingness to sit down and wait for a mistake. Manila’s position is infinitely more precarious. As the weaker actor in a fundamentally asymmetric conflict, the Philippines does not have the luxury of an idle moment.
The Philippines’ immediate objective was to prevent further encroachment and maintain control over its remaining maritime features in the Spratly Islands. To do this, Manila cultivated a diverse network of allies and partners, hoping that their collective influence could offset its military deficits. Yet again, however, the friction between the Philippines’ strategic objectives and the means it employs resurfaces.
Despite its efforts at minilateralism, the Marcos administration was still very much convinced of the need to confront China alone, both to prove that it could uphold the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity by itself, as well as to dispel allegations that it was acting on behalf of U.S. interests. In fact, the United States has extended several offers of assistance to deliver supplies to the Sierra Madre over the past few months – offers that the Philippine government has consistently declined. If the goal of alliances is to lend to each other a collective strength – political, economic, or otherwise – then Manila has deliberately handicapped itself with marginal returns from its alliance-building.
Now, does this mean that the Philippines should send in its navy, establish its own maritime militia, or resort to ramming Chinese vessels in return? Not quite. Having the United States or a coalition of the willing involved in resupply missions to Second Thomas Shoal is a policy option. It would undoubtedly lead to a dressing down from Beijing, but it would secure Manila’s lifeline to the disputed territories. However, if the Philippines is adamant at projecting a self-reliant defense posture, then it must develop its capabilities to independently monitor, patrol, and safeguard the country’s territorial waters all the way up to its exclusive economic zone. Besides acquiring more ships, this means establishing a permanent presence in the South China Sea. After all, it was the withdrawal of Philippine vessels from Scarborough Shoal that allowed the Chinese to take over back in 2012.
There have been efforts to that end since the grounding of the Sierra Madre in 1999. The development of the Spratlys had been in the works as early as 2014 but stalled due to shifting priorities and the lack of adequate resources. Things had only just gotten back on track under Marcos, meaning that the planned upgrades were unlikely to have a substantial impact on the balance of power anytime soon. To compensate, the Philippine Coast Guard anchored the BRP Teresa Magbanua off Sabina Shoal last April to serve as a temporary outpost in the area – a response to the increasing number of Chinese vessels loitering off the coast of Palawan.
But while the reasoning behind it was sound, it did not change the fact that, like at Second Thomas Shoal, China simply had to dislodge the vessel from its current position – either physically through ramming or towing, or by cutting off its supply lines – and then swoop in and occupy the territory. Sure enough, the Teresa Magbanua withdrew from Sabina Shoal on September 13. Manila could, in theory, rotate the deployment of ships to serve as outposts, and the Philippines has pledged to do just that. But with only a few assets available from the outset, this would simply multiply the damage sustained across multiple vessels. It is not a sustainable practice in the long run.
Rather than confront Beijing head-on, Manila needs to fight smart. In the absence of permanent outposts in the Spratlys, the first order of business should be refurbishing the crumbling Sierra Madre and sustaining the long-term at-sea deployment of Philippine Coast Guard vessels. Critical to both is a steady inflow of supplies necessary to maintain and repair against structural damage, either from the elements or the China Coast Guard.
In an ideal situation, temporary outposts like these should already be fitted to enable a limited degree of self-sufficiency, minimizing the need for resupply to begin with. Something like desalination machines would provide crews with a stable water supply by converting seawater. But with conventional maritime resupply having already proven dangerous in the past, defense planners need to come up with new ways of conducting resupply missions, either through use of rotary/fixed-wing aircraft or smaller, more maneuverable platforms at sea. Naval drones, for example, provide a unique opportunity by removing the risk posed to human operators and the associated issues, which could lead to escalation. Even if apprehended or destroyed, their loss would not be enough to compromise the country’s overall defense posture while still managing to deliver the intended reputational costs for Beijing.
The bottom line is that the Philippines has to do something tangible to compel China to modify its behavior rather than wait for the unlikely scenario that international pressure will do so on its behalf.
At the end of the day, what Philippine authorities need to understand is that “assertive transparency” has reached its saturation point. Defense cooperation and capability development may be beneficial in the long run, but right now, what Manila needs is the will to back up the courage of its beleaguered servicemen. “Naming and shaming,” while crucial, must always be subsumed under a broader framework for national security. Dialogue and diplomacy constitute one element; the modernization of the Philippines’ armed forces constitutes another. But actually responding to Chinese provocations on the ground – that is where the future of its struggles in the South China Sea will be determined, whether in the eyes of Filipinos, the Chinese, or otherwise.