1. Claims:
-China is claiming almost everything west of our country, USA does not. The Chinese claim is non-compromising, non-negotiable. Only miracles will make them back out.
2. Ally:
-US is our ally by virtue of 50+ years Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT), China is not.
Even if you pursue a treaty with China, just refer to No. 1.
3. Historical abuses
-the ever repeated issue of US abuses during American Occupation. Yes, we need closure. I totally agree. But those acts were committed by different people, about a century (100 years) ago. Even Japan who has done things way way worse than what had been committed by the US soldiers, we consider them one of our close Asian ally. Even Germany, we don’t hate them for the abuses done by Hitler and the Nazi soldiers. Why? Because we don’t hate people for whatever bad their forefathers had committed. In order to move forward, we must forgive those who acted badly in the past. We must be more concerned about what is happening in the present. Admit it or not, the Chinese Government is a treacherous bunch who are really good in propaganda. And it is not yet too late for our “best and brightest” foreign affairs secretary to think about what direction he is leading our country into in terms of the foreign policy towards Chinese Government. Again, in all of these, refer to No. 1.
4. The US needs Phl
The country is strategic when talking of Military significance but We are of no economic value to them. As a matter of fact, their Number 1 Economic ally is… Tentenennen!!! Yeah! You guessed it right. China!!!
Because when SHTF (NSFW ang meaning ng acronym na yan, pero ibig sabihin, chaos x 10000000000) and the war breaks, they won’t need to ask our permission to use this godd*mn (Kano accent) country as a staging ground. By that time, we might be busy already licking our wounds. Eh, what if we are allies of China when war breaks? Doesn’t matter for China. They will just use this place as a forward perimeter. And will only agree to defend the country IF… Tentenenen! We would agree that after the war, we will never lay claim to the contested grounds in the west of Philippines. They will still win the game.
5. Freedom of Navigation (FON) operations are a way of asserting that the waters surrounding the Spratly Islands as a whole and Kalayaan Island Group are in fact international waters. Such FON operation on International waters is considered Innocent Passage. Meanwhile, several Chinese vessels anchored and others reportedly harassed a resupply ship of the Philippines is not Innocent. Especially that the ships were spotted at an average of 5 nautical miles, way within the 12 nautical miles territorial waters of the Pagasa Island.
Bonus:
please compare the photos below.
Don’t you see anything unusual? The first one is taken during a routine maritime surveillance pass by Philippine air assets while the other is a picture taken from the marinetraffic.com.
Encircled red on the second photo is the approximate location of Pagasa Island and surrounding reefs. Not a single vessel detected in the area. Either they left already, or they turned off their AIS-Sat to avoid detection of their location. The latter is more plausible.
Who knows, It may also show the deceptive behavior of the communist state.