Taiwan Soft-Pedals Scarborough Claim as Manila Ties Take Priority

This article was originally published in Radio Free Asia. Read the original article.

By Taejun Kang for RFA

Taiwan is trapped between sea rocks and a hard place: As the Philippines has filed documentation to strengthen its claims in the South China Sea, Taipei must balance asserting its own conflicting claims with building closer ties with Manila, especially as a potential ally against Chinese aggression, experts told Radio Free Asia.

The Philippines on July 29 submitted its official nautical chart of Scarborough Shoal, a disputed feature in what Manila calls the West Philippine Sea – the section of the South China Sea that is within its exclusive economic zone – to the United Nations, to bolster its claim on the area, which is also claimed by China and Taiwan.

Beijing immediately protested the filing, accusing Manila of infringing on Chinese sovereignty.

Taiwan also opposed the move, but in a way that did not outright condemn the Philippines. It also repeated its call for Taiwan to be included in negotiations over South China Sea disputes.

“The filing adds specificity to a Philippine position that was already well established,” Sylwia M. Gorska, a doctoral candidate in international relations at the University of Central Lancashire in the United Kingdom, told RFA. “For Taiwan, the consequence is not the loss of its claim, but a further deterioration in its relative ability to make that claim consequential.”

The episode highlights an increasingly awkward tension for President Lai Ching-te’s government. That government considers itself to be the continuation of the Republic of China, or ROC, and thus continues to formally claim land it historically laid claim to, dating back to the era that it controlled the mainland, including Scarborough Shoal and other South China Sea features.

Meanwhile, the Philippines has become an increasingly important security partner as both governments contend with pressure from Beijing.

Official status

Unlike Manila and Beijing, Taipei is excluded from the United Nations and has limited ability to advocate for its claims via the same international processes being used by other claimants.

But Taiwan’s exclusion from the U.N. system does not invalidate its claim, Aadil Brar, a Taipei-based independent analyst and former visiting scholar at National Chengchi University, told RFA.

“The real problem is procedural rather than substantive,” Brar told RFA.

Taiwan can continue asserting sovereignty through Foreign Ministry statements and other diplomatic channels, he said, but cannot participate on equivalent terms in the international mechanisms through which Manila is formalizing its position.

That disadvantage is compounded by Taiwan’s lack of a physical role around Scarborough.

See also: China's assertiveness in South China Sea poses global security concern: Report

Gorska noted that China has exercised de facto control around the shoal since 2012 and sharply increased its Coast Guard presence there, while Philippine Coast Guard and fisheries vessels continue to challenge Chinese restrictions.

“In practice, Scarborough is now contested primarily by China and the Philippines,” she said. “They are the states maintaining presence, generating the confrontations and forcing decisions about how far coercion can go before it carries wider diplomatic or alliance consequences.”

“Taiwan remains a claimant, but it is largely absent from those day-to-day interactions and therefore has limited influence over the operational conditions around the shoal.”

Strategic restraint

Taiwan’s weak operational position gives Taipei little incentive to turn the Philippine filing into a serious bilateral dispute, analysts said.

The Philippines’ northern islands sit close to Taiwan and the Luzon Strait, a key maritime passage that could become strategically important in any cross-Strait conflict. The Philippines is also a U.S. treaty ally and has expanded military cooperation with Washington.

Gorska pointed to the deployment of the U.S. NMESIS anti-ship missile system in Batanes during this year’s Balikatan exercises as an example of the growing military relevance of the northern Philippines to Taiwan’s security environment.

“A more forceful Taiwanese response would signal continued commitment to the ROC claim, but it would do little to improve Taipei’s position at Scarborough and could impose costs on a relationship that may matter far more in a cross-Strait crisis,” she said.

It is for this reason that disputes between Manila and Taipei will likely be handled quietly, Enrico Cau, a Taipei-based independent security researcher, told RFA.

“Under the current situation it is likely that most differences on disputes in the South China Sea between Taiwan and the Philippines will be ironed out through diplomatic channels and a carefully dosed media exposure, where disagreements are manifested with moderation,” Cau said.

He said actions by the Philippines and other regional governments were primarily aimed at countering China rather than challenging Taiwan, giving Taipei an additional reason to exercise restraint.

Brar similarly said Taiwan’s response to Manila had been notably softer than the language it typically uses when responding to Chinese moves in disputed waters.

“Taiwan is almost certainly going to downplay this dispute, and its actual response already shows that,” he said.

Domestic politics

In Taiwan, the restrained approach has become a hotly debated issue in the political arena.

Chen I-hsin, Culture and Communications Committee Chair of the main opposition Kuomintang (KMT), accused the government of applying double standards, contrasting its muted reaction to the Philippine filing with its criticism last year of China’s establishment of a nature reserve at Scarborough Shoal.

Chen urged the Foreign Ministry to negotiate with Manila to defend Taiwan’s sovereignty.

The ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmaker Wu Szu-yao pushed back, saying Taiwan and the Philippines were both victims of Chinese aggression and arguing that the KMT should instead direct its criticism at Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

The dispute reflects a broader divergence over how much political weight Taiwan should give to historic South China Sea claims from the era that the ROC controlled the mainland.

Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung acknowledged in July that Taiwan was not actively pressing its South China Sea claims, while maintaining that its formal sovereignty position had not changed.

Gorska said that distinction was important.

See also: Vietnam enters fray at disputed South China Sea sandbank

“The Lai administration appears to be reducing the political salience of the ROC’s traditional South China Sea claims rather than abandoning them,” she said. “The claims remain formally intact, but Taipei is no longer treating their public assertion as an objective in itself.”

Taiwan continues to administer Taiping Island, the largest naturally occurring feature in the Spratly Islands, and has reaffirmed its South China Sea claims when challenged. But analysts said Taipei appears increasingly selective about which claims warrant sustained political attention.

Cau said there were signs within the DPP of a more pragmatic approach that placed greater emphasis on international law and on territory Taiwan could realistically control and defend.

It remained unclear, he said, whether Lai’s softer approach represented a genuine move away from traditional ROC claims or simply an attempt to navigate an increasingly complex regional security environment.

For Taipei, that ambiguity may itself be useful, according to analysts. Taiwan can preserve its formal sovereignty position without allowing a remote shoal it does not control to disrupt a relationship with Manila that is becoming more consequential to its security.

But the Philippine filing also points to a longer-term risk for Taiwan – if regional governments increasingly formalize maritime claims through U.N. filings or eventually reach agreements governing behavior in the South China Sea, Taiwan could find rules affecting its interests being shaped without its participation, Cau said.

[KS]

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