The four-day visit of a Vietnamese patrol vessel to the Philippines began on 4 August. The purpose of this visit is to conduct joint exercises in the waters of the South China Sea. It is worth stressing once again that the water area is one of the most vulnerable zones in the entire geopolitical space. Moreover, it is on its territory that the current stage of the “Great World Game” is being played out.
The arrival of the Vietnamese patrol vessel CSB 8020 in Manila
At first glance, such an event might not seem worthy of media attention because the main protagonists are not the most important countries. However, the location of the event is the South China Sea, which is currently a real arena for large-scale military demonstrations. This type of event involves aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines, aircraft and ground forces. In one way or another, both the world media and our online magazine (“New Eastern Outlook”) are interested in what is happening. Let’s start with the military equipment, or more precisely, the warship that everyone is talking about. As it turned out, the CSB 8020 is the former USCGC Morgenthau (Hamilton class) with a displacement of 3250 tonnes. The ship was built in 1969 and served until 2017. It was then sold to Vietnam. An interesting fact is that this ship took part in some operations during the Vietnam War.
It is noteworthy that the sale and purchase of a warship of this class, which took place between recent enemies, is the most real symbolism, a sign of metamorphosis and the beginning of a radical reformatting of the world order. Who would have thought that the day would come when the US Secretary of Defence would be received in Hanoi (with all the military honours)?
At the moment, relations between countries that project the same type of state structure are escalating, and in the future this conflict may take on a large-scale armed character. The reason for the conflict is the factor of overlapping territorial claims in the South China Sea.
A more detailed examination of such phenomena as the factor of overlapping territorial claims in the South China Sea
The so-called factor came into play immediately after the end of the Vietnam War. This is also emphasised in the comments on the visit of a Vietnamese ship to the Philippines. In addition to all the above, there is also mention of a set of “standard maps” published last August by the PRC service. These showed the borders of the PRC and other countries in the world.
The map also includes the famous “nine-dash line”, according to which the PRC claims ownership of 80-90 per cent of the South China Sea. There are also island territories that several countries in the Southeast Asian sub-region (including Vietnam and the Philippines) claim as their own. And while Beijing has managed to reduce the level of tension in its relations with Hanoi in recent years, the latter’s relations with Manila have been nothing short of troubled. So far, Beijing and Hanoi have managed to maintain neutral relations. Relations between Beijing and Manila are on the brink of disaster. However, this kind of issue has contributed to a rapprochement between Vietnam and the Philippines. A few months after the maps were published, talks were held between current Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and Võ Văn Thưởng. Therefore, the visit of the Vietnamese ship is perfect for this bilateral relationship.
Moreover, this visit is also approved by the PRC’s main geopolitical adversary, the US. Washington justifies its growing presence in the South China Sea and Southeast Asia with “international law”. In particular, reference is made to the ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague in the summer of 2016. In due course, this satisfied the Philippines’ protest against the said claims of the People’s Republic of China.
We would like to reiterate that the ten countries that make up Southeast Asia and are members of ASEAN behave differently in the field of forces formed here by the world’s leading powers.
Balancing Southeast Asian countries between China and the US
When it comes to an issue such as Southeast Asia’s balancing act between China and the United States, it is fair to say that only the Philippines is pro-American. Manila, for its part, wants to ease tensions in its relations with Beijing. Vietnam’s foreign policy cannot be defined as “pro-American”. Despite the existing problems, the PRC’s resource-based economic relations are developing quite successfully.
Cambodia and Laos are quite friendly towards Beijing. The attitude of other ASEAN members can be defined as neutral.
In this respect, the balanced position of ASEAN’s tacit leader, Indonesia, is characteristic. Apparently, the change of leadership that took place after the parliamentary elections on 14 February this year has not affected the country’s foreign policy in any way. An important demonstration of Jakarta’s refusal to follow Washington’s “advice” to radically abandon the policy of rebalancing was the formation of the Sino-Indonesian “Format 2+2”, the first meeting of which was held in Jakarta on 12 August.
The inevitable consequence of the differences in the positioning of ASEAN member states is its amorphousness, which is often attributed to the “Asian specificity” of building interstate relations.
The personalisation of complex international issues
Let us now turn to a general theme, namely “the role of the personalityl in history”. This has already been mentioned in connection with the Indonesian elections. The “personality” at the helm of this extremely important country has changed, but its foreign policy course has not.
Nor was there anything new in Vietnam when Tô Lâm replaced Võ Văn Thưởng as President of Vietnam in May this year. There was a place for the following: maintaining constructive relations with China, the recent visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Hanoi, and the visit of a Vietnamese border ship to Manila.
The example of Ferdinand Marcos Jr, who succeeded R. Duterte as president of the Philippines in the spring of 2022, is often cited as evidence of the importance of personal change in the leadership of a country. However, it was under the latter that Manila’s foreign policy drifted towards Washington and Tokyo, while the former only gave it its current appearance. Again, there are fundamental reasons for this.
In general, the trend in recent years towards the “personalisation” of complex international problems has proved to be an inevitable consequence of the era of the dominance of simulacra in the public information space, when “TV pictures” substitute for real events. Moreover, this kind of substitution is beginning to take on a very grotesque form.
While the statesmen of the three Southeast Asian countries mentioned above are experienced and responsible politicians, it is not uncommon in some leading countries for people of both sexes with obvious mental health problems to hold, or aspire to, important public positions. But this does not affect the actual political process. In fact, it is planned and carried out by “persons” who avoid public appearances.
These public actors are assigned the same role as Greta Thunberg in the extremely complex issue of climate change and the famous “virtuoso pianist” in the Ukrainian catastrophe. That is, to draw the attention of the honoured public to the antics of the carpet clowns, behind whose backs the real directors are almost openly striving to transform the current world political drama into the genre of another global tragedy.
This is the unfortunate result of the author’s reasoning, based on a seemingly insignificant event such as the visit of a Vietnamese coastguard ship to the Philippines.
But today, unfortunately, it is hard to come to a different conclusion in any other scenario of this kind of reflection.
Vladimir TEREKHOV, an expert on the problems of the Asia-Pacific region, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”
