Poetic justice is about China getting the flak for its earlier disinformation regarding the existence of a “gentleman’s agreement” in addressing the West Philippine Sea conflict.
The verbal commitment specifically tackled the protocol at Ayungin Shoal, where the BRP Sierra Madre was intentionally marooned in 1999 to since then become a major source of friction between Manila and Beijing.
The conclusion from most independent groups that assessed the “gentleman’s agreement” was that it is fictitious similar to the nature of the nine-dash line boundary claim. That it is an outright deception was proven in an exchange of communications prior to the claim that the deal existed.
According to the international watchdog and publication The Diplomat, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs published four statements on tensions at Ayungin Shoal in 2023.
The Chinese pronouncements, at that time, claimed that Manila continuously violated the 2002 Declaration on Conduct and its promise, allegedly made several times, to tow away the Sierra Madre, which is another proven misinformation that Beijing concocted.
“None refers to a Duterte-Xi ‘gentleman’s agreement.’ Even on 26 March 2024, the statement of Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Chen Xiaodong about an incident with a Philippine resupply mission accused the Philippines of disregarding the 2002 Declaration on Conduct, not of ignoring the gentleman’s agreement,” The Diplomat stated.
Several other Chinese statements before April 2024 addressed incidents at the shoal, calling out the Philippines for violating the Declaration on Conduct and older promises. “None mentioned the existence of a gentleman’s agreement,” it added.
The Chinese Embassy, instead of referring to any existing arrangement, called for negotiations to manage the situation that suggested no previous deal was in place.
In the eighth meeting of the Bilateral Consultation Mechanism (BCM) in 2024, the Ayungin Shoal was part of the agenda but no understanding was mentioned.
Earlier meetings of the BCM also did not refer to an agreement on the hotly contested shoal.
“Several of the mentioned Chinese statements refer to an earlier promise to tow away the Sierra Madre. However, China has never clarified who gave this promise or provided any evidence for it. Former Presidents Arroyo and Estrada denied that such a promise was ever made,” The Diplomat report indicated.
“Chinese officials began attaching importance to a “gentleman’s agreement” (also called a “verbal agreement”) and denouncing Philippine violations of it only after former presidential spokesperson Roque mentioned it in late March 2024,” according to the Diplomat.
If there is an agreement between the Philippines and China, it is contained in the DoC that is non-binding.
The DoC was put in place to pave the way for the Code of Conduct that will commit all the signatories to it but the document has been shipwrecked for the past 20 years due to hurdles that China has put up.
Among the demands of China for the signing of the CoC is that settlement of the territorial conflicts should not involve nations other than the claimants and that the nine-dash line be held inviolable.
Another difficult condition is that third-party processes are not recognized which means that multilateral decisions such as the 2016 arbitral ruling will not apply in the agreements.
In a way, China is seeking the CoC’s validation of what the Permanent Court of Arbitration dismissed as baseless, which is the historical nine-dash line boundary.
The agreement that approximates what China has been crowing about is the DoC that does not even hold claimants to follow since the CoC is the real document that is being awaited.
China’s insistence on what it wanted also makes countries in the region question its sincerity in following agreements.
