In China's eyes

China's fundamental foreign policy follows the guidelines set by Chinese President Xi Jinping: "Mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation." So why, you may ask, does China always seem to give us the short end of the stick with regard to our competing claims in the South China Sea?

First of all, that question need not be asked if we truly understand those guidelines, simple as they are. What is there not to understand in mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation? They are like three simple steps in an uncomplicated dance by two willing people. Reject the guidelines and the exact reverse happens.

No mutual respect, no peaceful coexistence, no win-win cooperation. That exactly is what is happening to Chinese-Philippine relations. That is what we get when our standpoint in the South China Sea proceeds from a belligerent "what is ours is ours" mindset. We completely ignore the fact that "what is ours" is actually contested. By China.

Look at it this way. If what is ours is really ours, meaning there are no other claimants contesting our ownership, then we can rightfully even go to the extent of going to war if so much as an inch is violated by whatever means. And we can just as rightfully test America's friendship by asking it to be on our side in this noble endeavor.

But the hard truth and stark reality is that there are other claimants to what we claim in the South China Sea. It is not just China but also Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Brunei who lay overlapping claims over the area. In other words it is not a valid assertion to say something is ours if an entire battalion of other claimants are making similar claims.

Every news organization that has ever reported on developments in the South China Sea, including the many that are patently pro-west in their orientation, never fail to qualify their stories with the fact that there are several claimants producing the dynamics they are reporting. This pretty obvious context is what is completely missing in our position.

And since this notion, this context of other claimants, is completely missing in our utterly naive position, then we self-righteously beat our chests in aggrieved hysterics each time we feel China is violating "what is ours." So lost are we that we couldn't even tell the difference between exclusive economic zone and sovereign territory.

If we feel aggrieved, so does China. If we think China is an intruder, so does it. If we think China violated "what is ours", China feels exactly the same way. We both have our hands in exactly the same cookie jar. The only difference is that China holds a "dos por dos" in its other hand while we can only flash a dirty finger with ours.

Xi Jinping's "mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation" is worth a try if we can man up and admit we do not own the street in which live. There are other dogs out there fiercer than us. Let us abandon the "what us ours us ours" mantra of Noynoy Aquino which led us to the rut we are in today.

On July 17 President Xi met former president Rodrigo Duterte. On July 19 Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi met former US state secretary Henry Kissinger. Say anything you want about the meetings. But to me, I see a China reaching out to the only two people brave and honest enough to see things in China's eyes and acted based on that understanding.