Confronting gray zone tactics

China’s unlawful gray zone tactics are the unstated context of the tiff between two Palace factions over the resupply missions to the grounded BRP Sierra Madre and the unwarranted Chinese violence they draw.

Here, the two Palace factions are basically trying to respond to this crucial question: What are the best ways to circumvent China’s increasingly violent gray zone tactics at the crucial Ayungin Shoal?

For Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin and the National Maritime Council (NMC), the question is best answered by announcing ahead the schedules for the resupply missions.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has since shot down that proposal, heeding instead Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro’s counsel not to publish the resupply schedules.

Besides this marked difference, the two factions also disagreed on how to portray the violent 17 June resupply mission to Ayungin.

Bersamin downplayed the Chinese attack on the Filipino sailors as a “misunderstanding and an accident.”

Teodoro, however, emphatically said, “We see the latest incident in Ayungin not as a misunderstanding or an accident. It was a deliberate act of the Chinese officialdom to prevent us from completing our mission.”

While Bersamin’s proposal was largely seen as an attempt to defuse the tension to make way for diplomacy, Teodoro had a more interesting strategic assessment of the incident.

By saying the incident was a “deliberate act of Chinese officialdom,” Teodoro practically restated that China was stubbornly escalating its gray zone tactics while clinging to her real intention: to ensure the BRP Sierra Madre collapses sooner than expected.

Should the derelict Sierra Madre collapse, Ayungin Shoal may quickly fall under Chinese control — which obviously we can’t allow.

Once that happens, it would also mean that China’s gray zone approach validates her strategic intent to avoid the worst-case regional geopolitical consequences from an outright military conflict in the West Philippine Sea.

This now brings us to what are the best options to circumvent China’s Ayungin Shoal blockade.

Seeking those options, however, isn’t easy, especially if we don’t know the stakes involved when seeking options.

Basically, seeking options revolves around answering these following complex questions: Will China’s gray zone tactics continue to be effective? Will Manila and its allies find ways to circumvent China’s approach and reinforce the BRP Sierra Madre? If no other options exist, will Manila risk using more forceful means, perhaps with support from its allies, to break China’s blockade?

Grasping properly and then answering these difficult questions will test the mettle of our officials and foreign policy experts.

But whatever answers are coughed up must also grasp another grave risk: “If Manila’s assertive actions render China’s gray zone tactics ineffective, military conflict in the area is likely,” said Chinese scholars Li Mingjiang and Xing Jianying in an interesting paper for the think-tank Carnegie Asia.

Despite such grave risks, both scholars said China is presently hobbled by many geopolitical constraints if she resorts to military action — allowing some breathing room and advantages for us.

One constraint, for instance, is that “Beijing understands that if it resorts to military action, neighboring states will likely offer diplomatic, if not military, support to Manila. In particular, states with overlapping territorial and maritime claims with China may fear Beijing will employ a similar approach to resolve their disputes and consequently align even more closely with extra-regional powers” like the United States.

Such geopolitical constraints, in fact, have forced many of China’s own foreign policy elite to continue insisting that China’s gray zone approach remains the best option to project China’s strategic interests in the WPS and elsewhere in the South China Sea.

Thoroughly addressing, confronting and doing something to stop China’s unlawful and increasingly violent use of gray zone tactics is therefore the resounding call of the day. A call, which not only concerns this country’s officialdom but also needs attention and help from the rest of the world.