Recently, a new round of confrontation between China and the Philippines in the waters near Ren'ai Jiao has polarized the Philippines, although some people advocate continuing to be tough on China on the South China Sea issue, but at the same time, some Philippine pragmatists have put pressure on Marcos Jr. in the way of "forcing the palace", asking them to resolve disputes with China in the South China Sea through dialogue.
A few days ago, a group of elites from Philippine political, business, and academic circles unanimously agreed in an interview that the South China Sea dispute is not the whole of China-Philippines bilateral relations, and that the common interests between the two countries far outweigh the differences.
There are people in the Philippines who are sober.
However, it is the fifth time since 2023 that Philippine official vessels have intruded into the waters adjacent to Scarborough Shoal.
The logic of the Philippines and Western countries is very strange, because Scarborough Shoal is close to the Philippines, so Scarborough Shoal belongs to the Philippines;Because China has allowed Filipino fishermen to fish in the waters around Scarborough Shoal, Scarborough Shoal must always allow Filipino fishermen to fish. If this logic is followed, then the islands off the coast of Turkey must belong to Turkey, not Greece;We all have to enjoy the fishery resources of Japan and South Korea, because we fishermen did not have these two countries when they fished there. What's more, when we fishermen arrived at Scarborough Shoal, the Philippines was still a group of indigenous people wearing grass skirts.
The Philippines takes our tolerance for granted, and the United States as a lifesaver, and now Marcos Jr. has abandoned his predecessor Duterte's win-win cooperation strategy and instead acted as a pawn of the United States to contain China, which will not only not bring well-being to the Filipino people, but will also damage the Philippine economy.
When we went out of the sea before, we paid attention to a few words: invasion and control measures.
We call the trespassing of Philippine government vessels into the waters adjacent to our Scarborough Shoal an invasion, and the meaning is very clear, that is, the Philippine vessels have entered the territorial waters.
The measures we have taken against them have also been upgraded at the same time, not to dislodge and contain, but to control them, in fact, to encircle and control them, and even to board the ship for inspection, or to detain them.
It's time for the Philippines to wake up.
Finally, putting aside disputes in good years and changing the status quo in times of stalemate is the way of a great power.
Small countries should not play an unrealistic role and serve foreign forces as cannon fodder for major power conflicts, otherwise they will lose the battle line with every toss. Shelving disputes is the best arrangement, don't mess around, move once, hit once, move and move and move.
In the late 80s, when China built an observation station in the South China Sea, the Vietnamese felt that their rights and interests had been violated, and they came to sabotage it again and again, which was more arrogant than the current Philippine people, and then there was the Nansha Naval War in 88 years.
After 88 years, the Vietnamese have been in the South China Sea for so many years, and they have never done anything near the islands and reefs occupied by China.
Filipinos, on the other hand, are typical of those who have never been beaten, and they feel like newborn calves are not afraid of tigers.