The steadily escalating confrontation between China and the Philippines over disputed maritime territories in the South China Sea is prompting new anxieties in Asia that the feud could trigger a much larger conflict that includes the United States.
The Hindu, one of India’s largest newspapers (and one that tends to be more moderate in its coverage of China compared to other Indian media), sounded the alarm in an editorial this weekend: “The U.S. and its Pacific allies might get dragged into a conflict between China and the Philippines, potentially turning the South China Sea into a battle theatre.”
The threat of a wider conflict was also on the minds of Bloomberg Opinion’s columnists in Asia and the U.S., who appear to be equally alarmed about the steadily deteriorating situation:
- COLLISION COURSE: “Beijing and Manila are on a collision course they must back down from. The region’s stability is at stake. Washington needs to help its treaty partner out, but in a way that allows the Philippines to have its own agency, so it can prevent a maritime clash with China. Avoiding further conflict won’t be easy, but is not impossible” — Karishma Vaswani, Bloomberg Opinion Columnist (BLOOMBERG)
- THIS IS DIFFERENT: “The confrontation with the Philippines is the most ominous, even as China’s air force skirt Taiwan’s airspace. The U.S. is not obliged to come to Taiwan’s defense if it is attacked (Washington prefers to be strategically mysterious about its plans, if it has any). On the other hand, the Americans and the Filipinos have had a mutual defense treaty since 1951” — Howard Chua-Eoan, Bloomberg Opinion Columnist (BLOOMBERG)
- RISK OF MISCALCULATION: “The big danger here is not cable-cutting by Filipino divers — it is the potential for a miscalculation that leads to an explosive conflict between US and Chinese forces. Washington needs to think how its actions translate in Beijing” — James Stavridis, dean emeritus of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University (BLOOMBERG)
