Collision shame

Intrepid, flawless Filipino seamanship took down the haughty Chinese, to the point that they won’t forgive or forget their shame from Monday’s “friendly fire” or “fratricide” metal-crunching, men-overboard collision in the high seas. That is clear.

However, it is “fortunate” the Chinese got the black eye this early, insist close observers of the West Philippine Sea (WPS) dispute and tension. If the Chinese ships hadn’t collided with each other, it could have turned into something far worse.

The Guilin class guided-missile destroyer PLA Type 052D “could have struck the much smaller Philippine Coast Guard ship (BRP Suluan) instead. This would have certainly resulted in injury and death, then where would we be? Could the Philippines NOT afford to call this an ‘armed attack?’” South China Sea expert Ray Powell told CNN.

Nonetheless, the Chinese self-inflicted Bajo de Masinloc folly indirectly instructs us that China’s behavior last Monday has taken an even more reckless and darker escalation with the direct use of an armed warship in its coercive tactics.

A point not lost on Armed Forces chief of staff Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. who said, “Kung gumamit sila ng warship, ibang level na ‘yun, no? Ibang level na (If they used a warship, that’s another level).”

Brawner said the Philippine military and Coast Guard judged that the frustrated Chinese warship clearly intended to disable, even ram deliberately, the BRP Suluan after a full-speed, high-seas chase.

Many foreign experts agreed with the military that there was Chinese hostile intent. Chinese analysts, on other hand, blamed the BRP Suluan.

Independently evaluating the video of the incident, an analyst told CNN the Chinese ships appeared to be “trying to sandwich the Philippine cutter between them, forcing it to take the water cannon blast at close range, down into its engine intakes, and one of the (Chinese) ships was supposed to bump it, hit the stern or otherwise cripple it.”

The Suluan’s heroic crew, however, deftly sped out of the vicious Chinese flanking “pincer” tactic, with only their stern flagpole slightly damaged but with the flag still proudly flying.

Reacting to the incident, China acknowledged the confrontation but made no mention of a collision — much less admitted, pointed out an analyst, that they were “trying a new, bold and intricate maneuver against a clearly well-prepared Philippine crew…and paid the price for it.”

But, if it is correct that China is trying out bolder and more reckless tactics, it only means China is inching closer to the dangerous threshold of her willing to use armed force, of an armed attack against us.

If anything, after their Bajo de Masinloc folly a humiliated China is trying to redeem her image by all means possible. China perhaps may now be willing to shed her previous naked displays of coercive power posing as acts of law enforcement in favor of brute force.

On that possibility, even if we try to avoid picking a fight and want to settle matters diplomatically, we nonetheless must steel ourselves for the fateful day we will have no choice but to engage our right of self-defense — on the day the Chinese sink one of our ships.

For the moment, the country’s allies are verbally and physically warning China to calm down and think twice.

The US, for example, deployed two of its warships to patrol the Bajo de Masinloc on Wednesday, two days after the collision. The American deployment was the first known US military operation in at least six years in the contested shoal’s waters.