China has mastered an abstract strategy board game invented over 2,500 years ago.
The two-player “Go” game is won when one fences off more space or territory on the board.
Applying it to a giant board, the West Philippine Sea, China has displayed mastery of the game, gaining more uninhabited features by deploying dozens of Navy, Coast Guard, and militia vessels.
At the latest count, China has 207 ships in the West Philippine Sea and has a blockade on Philippine-occupied features, like Pagasa, Lawak, Likas, and Ayungin Shoal.
It also sits at Reed Bank and Sabina Shoal, a strategic feature in the West Philippine Sea.
In sharp contrast, the Philippines has less than a dozen floating assets to guard its vast exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
It cannot afford to deploy all 13 ocean-going Philippine Coast Guard vessels — two 97-meter boats built by Japan, a French-built vessel, and 10 44-meter boats from Japan — to the West Philippine Sea.
The Philippine Navy has fewer vessels — two guided-missile frigates, a former Pohang-class corvette from South Korea, three ex-US Hamilton class cutters, and three ex-Peacock-class boats from the Royal British Navy transferred to the Philippines after the Hong Kong handover in 1997.
Even if the Navy and the Coast Guard combined their assets, the Philippines could not match China’s Southern Fleet that guards the South China Sea, including the West Philippine Sea.
Last week, the Philippines may have lost another square on the board game when BRP Teresa Magbanua left Sabina Shoal after a five-month deployment.
The Coast Guard could no longer sustain the vessel after it was damaged by China’s intentional ramming. It also needed urgent repairs.
From August until last week, BRP Teresa Magbanua was surrounded by about 70 Chinese vessels, making it difficult for the Philippines to resupply it.
BRP Teresa Magbanua was forced to pull out of Sabina Shoal, locally known as Escoda Shoal, because its 89 crew were starving and thirsty. It could also soon run out of fuel.
Attempts to deliver food, fuel, and freshwater to BRP Teresa Magbanua had failed after Chinese vessels shadowed, blocked, intentionally rammed, and blasted with water cannons the resupply boats in August.
That is the problem when the Philippines cannot afford to rotate vessels to guard Sabina Shoal, a luxury that China can afford during this difficult monsoon period.
In April, BRP Teresa Magbanua was sent to Sabina Shoal, a low-tide elevation about 100 nautical miles west of Palawan, one of the closest features in the disputed waters to the country, after suspicions that China would do reclamation and build a man-made island there, similar to what it did to seven features it has been occupying since 1988.
What can a single law enforcement vessel do against dozens of Chinese ships?
BRP Teresa Magbanua’s departure from Sabina Shoal is a victory for China, which has been trying to evict the vessel when it was deployed there in April.
The Philippines planned to send another Coast Guard vessel or a Navy warship to replace BRP Teresa Magbanua at Sabina Shoal, to demonstrate its resolve that not an inch of its sovereignty and sovereign rights would be surrendered to a foreign power.
But it anticipated that China would block any vessel going to Sabina Shoal.
The Philippines will have to rely now on political and diplomatic channels to defend its interests in the West Philippine Sea.
But, without ships occupying uninhabited features, the Philippines might be losing in the game as China aggressively asserts its historic claim in the South China Sea.
China is slowly occupying uninhabited features closer to the Philippines. Its Coast Guard vessels and Navy warships had been seen within 30 to 50 nautical miles west of the Philippines.
Lacking in minimum defense capabilities, the Philippines has to build and develop a stronger anti-access and area denial (A2AD) strategy to push away Chinese vessels.
In the meantime. Manila has to ask help from its allies and partners, particularly Washington, to defend its maritime zones.
The United States must help. It could implement its “ironclad” rhetoric to support its former colony.
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