EDITORIAL - Springtime

The Chinese describe it as the “spring” in bilateral relations, and the Philippine business community in particular is upbeat about President Duterte’s efforts to improve ties with the world’s second largest economy. A large, top-level business delegation is with the President in Beijing for his ongoing state visit.

Almost all countries including the United States are heavily engaged economically, culturally and in other ways with China. Philippine ties with the Chinese go back centuries, with many Filipinos tracing their ancestry to southern China.

There should be no reason for bilateral ties to be in winter – except for the expansive maritime territorial claims staked several decades ago by the Chinese over nearly all of the South China Sea. The so-called nine-dash line in Southeast Asian waters, drawn arbitrarily by a nation in northeast Asia, disregards overlapping claims of other countries, and has created tension in one of the world’s most vital shipping routes.

To stake its claim, China embarked on an aggressive reclamation in the disputed waters, destroying coral reefs as it created artificial islands, and shooing away Filipinos trying to fish in traditional fishing grounds. The reclamation activities were seen to belie China’s much-touted “peaceful rise.” The Philippines, with a weak military and without support from its Southeast Asian neighbors, was compelled to invoke international rules and ask the United Nations-backed Permanent Arbitration Court to define the country’s maritime entitlements.

The court did more than award the Philippines sovereign rights over disputed areas; it also invalidated China’s nine-dash-line claim. Beijing cannot be expected to abide overnight with a ruling based on a convention that it has ratified. But President Duterte’s friendly overtures could help persuade Beijing that it is in its best interest – and that of its neighborhood – to respect international rules.

China has prospered for three decades in a peaceful neighborhood. As it grows further economically and militarily, it will find that it can earn respect and prosper even more by adhering to and even leading in abiding by a rules-based global order. Then the flowers will fully bloom in the spring of its international relations.