The National Interest2016.1.27---Richard Javad Heydarian :美国会为菲律宾开战？

The National Interest2016.1.27---Richard Javad Heydarian :Will America Go to War for the Philippines?
Mao Zedong, the Great Helmsmen, once famously said: “Where the enemy advances, we retreat. Where the enemy retreats, we pursue.” In places like the Middle East, where the United States is perceived to be engaged in a gradual strategic retreat, China is on the offensive. The Asian powerhouse has been reaching out to key American allies such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt. as well as to post-sanctions Iran, which is expected to play an even more consequential role in creating a post-American order in the region.
Iran is soon expected to join the China-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which is largely seen as the emerging rival to North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance. And Iran, straddling the Eurasian landmass and rimland, will be very much at the center of China’s New Silk Road initiative. Across the continental Islamic sphere, stretching from Central Asia to Turkey, China has been engaged in a "Marching West" strategy aimed at increasing its footprint on the ruins of Russian and Western botched military interventions.
Leveraging its massive capital and technology, China has been wooing both disgruntled American allies and empowered U.S. adversaries. For example, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Tehran earlier this week. China’s strategy in the Middle East is not only about infrastructure, oil, exports, and (in light of the rise of ISIS and its implications for Uighur insurgency in Xinjiang) counter-terrorism. But as Wang Jisi—a leading Chinese strategist at Peking University—argued: it is also about countering—à la Mao’s dictum—America’s Pivot to Asia strategy, which is aimed at constraining Beijing’s territorial assertiveness in the East Asian seascape. As America pushes back against China in East Asia, the latter hopes to chip away at Western influence in West Asia.
Though there is certainly an emerging Sino-American “Great Game” across the Eurasian landmass, Beijing’s strategic priority remains in its own backyard, particularly the East and South China Seas, which it views as its national “blue soil.” Underlining its determination to consolidate its claims in adjacent waters, China kicked off the year with a bang by conducting multiple test flights to the newly-furbish airstrip on Fiery Cross in the South China Sea. This was followed by reports of China’s decision to (once again) deploy its giant oil platform, Haiyang Shiyou 981, to Vietnamese-claimed waters, just as Hanoi grapples with what looks like a testy political transition.
America, however, received a major strategic boost when the Philippine Supreme Court cleared the implementation of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA). The new security pact allows America to gain access to premiere Philippine military bases and facilities, including those that embrace the South China Sea. Pentagon’s soon-to-be-augmented military footprint in the area, however, runs the risk of being too provocative to China, heightening regional tensions, but also too little to fully rein in Chinese ambitions.
Twenty-First Century Bases
Signed shortly after President Obama’s visit to Manila in mid-2014, the EDCA immediately faced a backlash in the Philippine Senate, which insisted that the new pact is a treaty that demands ratification. The case was eventually dragged to the Philippine Supreme Court, which after almost a year of deliberations ruled that the EDCA is an executive agreement that falls within the prerogative of the Benigno Aquino administration. The Philippines’s deteriorating position in the South China Sea, especially in light of China’s expanding footprint in the Spratly chain of islands, was clearly at the center of the high court’s favorable verdict.
Unlike the Cold War days, the Philippines won’t receive billions of dollars for renting out its bases to America. In fact, the host country will shoulder transportation and utility costs of the visiting U.S. forces. America, however, will gain negotiated, rotational decade-long access to the Philippines’s most important military facilities, including those in Subic and Clark—the site of America’s biggest overseas bases during the Cold War—as well as Oyster Bay in Palawan, all of which are near disputed waters in the South China Sea. This allows the U.S. Navy to more quickly and effectively respond to any contingency in the increasingly volatile region, which could very well end up as Asia’s new battlefield. Arguably, the EDCA represented a critical component in the operationalization of the military dimension of America’s pivot to the region.
In the Philippines, proponents of the deal have described EDCA as an urgently-needed initiative to upgrade the country’s bilateral alliance with the United States. After all, the new pact, which builds on the 1998 Visiting Forces Agreement, facilitates the expansion of joint military exercises and enhances interoperability among their armed forces. To accommodate America’s massive military platforms, Manila expects Washington to upgrade the facilities as well as the surrounding infrastructure of designated Philippine bases. The two allies are also contemplating the prospects of joint patrols close to South China Sea land features occupied by China.
Down the road, Manila hopes that America will increase its paltry military aid to its Southeast Asian ally, which is caught in a bitter maritime dispute with the Chinese juggernaut. For example, a country like Egypt receives up to $1.3 billion in annual military aid, while the Philippines, a vibrant democracy and a former colony that has fought shoulder-to-shoulder with America throughout twentieth century conflicts, has had to settle for $40 million. The Middle East’s most powerful military, Israel, is seeking $5 billion in annual aid in compensation for its cooperation during the negotiation and implementation of the Iranian nuclear deal. Simply put, there is a lot of room for improvement as far as Philippine-U.S. security relations are concerned.
China wasted no time in lashing out at the newly-approved agreement between the Philippines and America. The Xinhua News Agency, China’s leading state-owned portal, accused Manila of "turning to Uncle Sam to back its ambition to counter China," warning that the Philippines will "bear the negative consequences of its stupid move [author’s own emphasis] in the future". It prodded the Philippines to instead solve "disputes with China through negotiations without seeking help from a third party." Zhu Feng, an expert at Nanjing University, warned that the implementation of EDCA will make the disputed theatre “more crowded, and the risk for a military conflict will continue to rise."
Tyranny of Uncertainty
There is, however, nothing in EDCA that commits America to come to the Philippines’s aid in the event of a conflict between Manila and Beijing over disputed features. The Obama administration continues to equivocate on the question of whether the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty (see articles 4 and 5) covers Philippine-claimed land features in the South China Sea. For decades, America has wavered on this specific issue.
Back in the 1970s, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, in a diplomatic cable, made it clear that “there are substantial doubts that [Philippine] military contingent on island in the Spratly group would come within protection of (MDT),” instead only offering “helpful political actions” in an event of conflict between the Philippines and a third party. In absence of a legal and diplomatic settlement of these disputes, Kissinger clarified that “[we] do not see legal basis at this time, however, for supporting the claim to Spratlys of one country over that of other claimants.”
For top officials like Kissinger, America’s limited commitment was due to the fact that the signing of the MDT preceded the Philippines’s effective occupation of features such as Thitu (Pag-Asa) Island, plus there was a necessity to ensure that bilateral security obligations would not be exploited as a carte blanche for Philippine territorial adventurism. As Kissinger argued, in absence of international settlement, what matters is “[c]ontinuous, effective, and unconstested occupation and administration of territory”, but “[Philippine] occupation could hardly be termed uncontested in face of claims and protests of Chinese and Vietnamese.”
America, however, did express, albeit with certain caveats, its commitment to come to the rescue of the Philippines if the latter’s vessels and troops come under attack in the Pacific theatre—but not necessarily if it involves a military showdown over contested land features. Kissinger made it clear that the “MDT may apply in event of attack on [Philippine] forces deployed to third countries, which. . . is fundamentally different from case where deployment is for purpose of enlarging Philippine territory.”
This is precisely why the United States chose to encourage the Philippines to find a diplomatic compromise when China wrested control of Philippine-claimed Mischief Reef (1994) and Scarborough Shoal (2012). Nonetheless, in Manila’s calculation, America’s augmented military presence on its soil will serve as a ‘latent deterrence’ against further Chinese revanchism with its 200 nautical miles exclusive zone. After all, China only started to chip away at Philippine-claimed features when American bases vacated the country in 1992.
Also, it would be politically difficult for America to desist from meaningfully aiding a besieged Philippines when a significant amount of its troops are located on the Southeast Asian country’s soil. In short, America will be compelled to act if Sino-Philippine disputes get out of control and transform into a full-fledged confrontation. This is why EDCA means that China will have to more seriously take a American military response into consideration if and when it chooses to coercively occupy Philippine-controlled/claimed features.
Nonetheless, there is no guarantee that this will be enough to rein in Chinese ambitions in the area. Not to mention, China could in fact accelerate its construction activities, expand its paramilitary patrols and step up its military footprint in the Spratly chain of islands to pre-empt the expected spike in American military presence in the area. What is clear, however, is that China’s neighbors like the Philippines are desperate for American assistance like never before.
Richard Javad Heydarian is an Assistant Professor in international affairs and political science at De La Salle University, and previously served as a policy advisor at the Philippine House of Representatives. As a specialist on Asian geopolitics and economic affairs, he has written for or been interviewed by Al Jazeera, Asia Times, BBC, Bloomberg, Foreign Affairs, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times and USA TODAY, among other leading international publications. He is the author of Asia’s New Battlefield: US, China, and the Struggle for Western Pacific (Zed, London). You can follow him on Twitter: @Richeydarian.
Image: Flickr/U.S. Navy.


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The National Interest2016.1.27---Richard Javad Heydarian :美国会为菲律宾开战？
毛泽东，伟大舵手，曾经说过一句名言：“凡敌进我退。凡敌退我追。“在像中东，美国被认为从事一个循序渐进的战略退却的地方，中国是在进攻上。亚洲劲旅已经深入到美国的重要盟友，如沙特阿拉伯和埃及。以及到后期的制裁伊朗，预计将创造一个后美国为了在该地区发挥更间接的作用。
伊朗预计不久加入中国主导的上海合作组织（SCO），这在很大程度上被视为新兴的竞争对手，北大西洋公约组织（北约）联盟。和伊朗，横跨欧亚大陆和池州市边缘化，会非常多，在中国的新丝绸之路倡议的中心。在整个大陆的伊斯兰领域，从中亚到土耳其拉伸，中国一直在从事“三月西部大开发”战略，目的是在俄罗斯和西方拙劣的军事干预的废墟增加其足迹。
凭借其庞大的资金和技术，中国一直在拉拢这两个不满美国盟友并授权美国的敌人。例如，中国国家主席习近平访问了德黑兰本周早些时候。 中国在中东地区的战略不仅是基础设施建设，石油，出口，以及（在光ISIS的兴起及其对维吾尔叛乱新疆）反恐。但正如王缉思 - 中国领先的策略北京大学，认为：它也是关于打击-一拉毛泽东的名言 - 美国的支点亚洲战略，其目的是限制北京的领土自信东亚海景。作为美国推动背靠中国在东亚地区，后者希望能蚕食西亚西方的影响。
虽然有肯定是一个新兴的中美“大博弈”横跨欧亚大陆，北京的战略重点仍然在自己的后院，特别是东部和南部中国海域，并将其视为本国的“蓝土。”强调决心巩固其在邻近海域主张，中国拉开序幕的一年，伴随着一声巨响通过进行多次飞行试验在中国南海上的火热交叉的新磨光的飞机跑道。其次是中国的决策报告（再次）部署其巨大的石油平台，海洋石油981，到越南宣称的水域，就像河内埋头苦干看起来像一个暴躁的政治过渡。
美国，然而，收到的重大战略提升时，菲律宾最高法院扫清了加强防务合作协议（EDCA）的实施。新的安全协议允许美国以获得首映菲律宾的军事基地和设施，包括那些拥抱中国南海。五角大楼即将要被增加在该地区的军事足迹，然而，跑的太挑衅中国，加高地区紧张局势的风险，但也太少了全面遏制中国的野心。
二十一世纪基地
奥巴马总统在2014年中期访问马尼拉后不久签署的EDCA马上就面临反弹的菲律宾参议院，它坚持认为，新协议是需要批准的条约。该案件最终被拖到菲律宾最高法院，它的审议经过近一年的裁​​定，EDCA是属于阿基诺政府的职权范围内的行政协定。在中国南海菲律宾日益恶化的地位，尤其是在中国的岛屿斯普拉特利连锁扩张的足迹，显然是在高等法院的判决有利的中心。
不同于冷战时期，菲律宾将不会收到数十亿美元用于出租的基地到美国。事实上，东道国将承担来访的美军运输和公用事业费用。美国，但是，将获得协商，旋转长达十年之久的访问菲律宾最重要的军事设施，包括在苏比克和克拉克，在美国最大的海外基地的冷战以及牡蛎湾在巴拉望岛期间的网站，所有的这是附近有争议的中国南海海域。这使得美国海军更快，更有效地在日益动荡地区的任何意外，这很可能最终会成为亚洲的新战场回应。可以说，EDCA代表在美国的支点该地区的军事层面的运作的重要组成部分。
在菲律宾，这笔交易的支持者描述EDCA作为急需的倡议，该国的双边同盟与美国升级。毕竟，新的协议，这是建立在1998年访问部队协议，促进了联合军事演习的扩大和加强两军之间的互操作性。为了适应美国的大规模军事平台，马尼拉希望华盛顿升级设施以及指定菲律宾基地周边的基础设施。这两个盟国也考虑接近被中国占领的中国南海地貌联合巡逻的前景。
下山的路，马尼拉希望美国将增加微不足道的军事援助，其东南亚盟友，这是陷入了与中国剑圣一个痛苦的海事纠纷。例如，埃及等国家收到高达$ 1.3十亿的年度军事援助，而菲律宾，一个充满活力的民主和前殖民地在整个二十世纪的冲突并肩战斗到肩与美国，不得不满足于$ 40个万美元。在中东地区最强大的军事力量，以色列正在寻求$ 5十亿在年援助赔偿其伊朗核协议的谈判和实施过程中的合作。简单地说，有很多改进的空间就菲美安全关系有关。
中国不失时机地抨击菲律宾和美国之间新批准的协议。新华社，中国领先的国有门户网站，指责马尼拉“转向山姆大叔来支持它的野心来对抗中国，”警告说，菲律宾将“承担在其死棋[作者自己的重点]的消极后果未来”。它打了招呼菲律宾，而不是解决“通过谈判的争端与中国不向第三方寻求帮助。”朱峰，一位专家在南京大学，警告说，EDCA的实施将对有争议的戏剧“更加拥挤，并为军事冲突的风险将继续上升。” 不确定性的暴政
有，然而，没有在EDCA，承诺美国要来菲律宾的援助，对有争议的功能，马尼拉和北京之间的冲突事件。奥巴马政府继续拐弯抹角对1951年的共同防御条约是否（见第4和第5），覆盖了中国南海菲声称土地功能的问题。几十年来，美国一直在动摇这一具体问题。
早在上世纪70年代，国务卿亨利·基辛格，在外交电报，明确表示，“有重大疑问，[菲律宾]在南沙群岛组中岛军事特遣队会来在保护（MDT）”，而不是只提供在菲律宾和第三方之间的冲突事件“有益的政治行动”。在没有这些争端的法律和外交解决，基辛格解释说，“（我们）没有看到法律依据，在这个时候，然而，为支持其请求一个国家的南沙超过其它索赔人。”
对于高层官员像基辛格，美国有限的承诺，是由于一个事实，即MDT签署之前，菲律宾的有效占领的功能，如Thitu（PAG-ASA）岛，以及有必要确保双边安全义务将不被利用作为一个全权委托为菲律宾领土的冒险。正如基辛格指出，在缺乏国际结算的，重要的是“[C] ontinuous，有效，unconstested占领和领土管理”，而是“[菲律宾]职业很难被称为无可争议面对索赔和中国的抗议和越南“。
美国，但是，没有明确的，尽管有一定的注意事项，承诺要来菲律宾的救援，如果后者的船只和部队受到攻击在太平洋战区，但不一定是如果涉及在有争议的土地功能的军事摊牌。基辛格明确提出了“MDT可以在部署到第三国[菲律宾]力，其中攻击的情况下适用。 。 。距离情况下部署是扩大菲律宾领土的目的完全不同。“
这正是为什么美国选择了鼓励菲律宾寻求外交妥协，当中国手中夺回菲称美济礁（1994年）和斯卡伯勒浅滩（2012）的控制权。然而，在马尼拉的计算，美国增加在其领土上的军事存在将作为一个“潜在的威慑”对中国进一步复仇主义，其200海里专属区。毕竟，中国才开始蚕食菲声称的功能，当美军基地腾空该国于1992年。
此外，这将是政治上的困难对美国从有意义的帮助时显著量的部队位于东南亚国家的土地被围困的菲律宾停止。总之，美国将被迫采取行动，如果中菲争端失控，并转变成一个羽翼丰满的对抗。这就是为什么EDCA意味着中国将不得不更加认真采取了美国军方的反应考虑是否以及何时选择强制性地占领菲律宾控制/宣称的功能。
虽然如此，也不能保证，这将是足以在中国的野心在该地区遏制。更何况，中国实际上可以加快其建设活动，扩大其准军事巡逻，加紧军事足迹岛屿斯普拉特利链抢先在该地区的美国军事存在预期的峰值。什么是明确的，但问题在于，中国的邻国如菲律宾都渴望从未像现在这样美国的援助。 理查德·贾瓦德Heydarian是助理教授，在国际事务和政治学的德拉萨大学，此前曾担任菲律宾众议院的政策顾问。作为亚洲的地缘政治和经济事务的专家，他为书面或被采访的半岛电视台，亚洲时报，BBC，彭博资讯，外交部，纽约时报，华尔街日报，金融时报和今日美国报，以及其他领先国际出版物。他是亚洲的新战场作者：美国，中国，和奋斗的西太平洋（捷思锐，伦敦）。你可以按照他的Twitter：@Richeydarian。 图片来源：Flickr /中美海军。



资料来源 :
The National Interest
Richard Javad Heydarian :Will America Go to War for the Philippines?
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/will-america-go-war-the-philippines-15031