In the words of the Philippine Navy spokesperson, the events of June 17 represented “the most aggressive action ever conducted by agents of aggression of [the] Chinese communist party in the South China Sea.” Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad wasn't exaggerating.
On that day, the Philippines conducted a routine resupply mission of its sailors stationed aboard the World War II–era Sierra Madre naval ship, which was intentionally grounded in 1999 at Second Thomas Shoal. Although the shoal is well within the Philippines' internationally accepted exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of 200 nautical miles from its shores, China claims such a wide swath of the South China Sea that it encroaches into the area around Second Thomas Shoal. Chinese forces responded to the resupply by ramming the Philippine boats and confiscating their weapons. Several sailors were injured in the incident, including one who lost a finger.
Much is known about the incident because it was caught on video—intentionally. For the past few years, Manila has implemented what has become known as its “transparency initiative,” or “assertive transparency,” to expose bad Chinese behavior in the South China Sea. Talk of the strategy dominated all of my discussions on a recent visit to the Philippines.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the South China Sea, Vietnam also has sprawling sovereignty disputes with China, but interestingly, since at least 2020, Hanoi has adopted the exact opposite strategy. In what I term the “opacity initiative,” Vietnam has clearly reached a quiet agreement with China not to publicize any of their clashes in the region, and to handle disagreements and tensions strictly behind closed doors to avoid unnecessary escalation.
Why has neither a transparency nor opacity strategy been effective? The answer lies in the nature of the current Chinese regime itself.
Neither approach has thus far succeeded. Beijing has steadily ramped up pressure against the Philippines using gray zone tactics to include ramming, shadowing, blocking, encircling, firing water cannons, and using military-grade lasers against both civilian and military ships. Indeed, the June 17 incident was so severe that some in both Manila and Washington believe it was sufficient to trigger the Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) of the U.S.-Philippine security alliance.
On the Vietnamese side, my conversations in recent weeks with multiple experts affiliated with the government underscored that the same kind of escalation is taking place: China continues to push the envelope throughout the South China Sea to elbow Vietnamese forces out or prevent them from ever getting into disputed areas. In a rare glimpse of Hanoi's response, a recent report showed that Vietnam was frantically building artificial islands on features it controls to rival Chinese island construction of the past decade. Presumably, Vietnam will eventually militarize at least some of these islands.
Why has neither a transparency nor opacity strategy been effective? The answer lies in the nature of the current Chinese regime itself.
Under past Chinese leaders like Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin, Beijing had fully bought into the George W. Bush administration's mantra that China must act as a “responsible stakeholder” in the international system. Chinese officials actively promoted their “peaceful rise” narrative to dispel any notions that Beijing sought conflict with its neighbors or the United States.
Current leader Xi Jinping, however, is cut from a different cloth. His China, beginning in 2012, has been more authoritarian and suspicious of the West. It also cares far less about its international reputation and is content flouting international law and norms of behavior if doing so suits Beijing's interests.
Within the South China Sea context, this means ignoring and undermining the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), even though Beijing signed up to the agreement. Early in Xi's tenure, a think tank expert affiliated with China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs candidly told me that Beijing should try to revise UNCLOS tailored for a new, more powerful China. I think this is a widely shared sentiment among the Chinese strategic elite today.
The unfortunate reality is that the Philippines' and Vietnam's reputation-focused strategies are outdated, designed for a China that no longer exists.
For Manila, shaming Beijing in front of the world has been effective at convincing neighbors like Australia and Japan to work more closely with the Philippines on the problem. But it has been entirely ineffective at changing Chinese behavior because Xi has already embraced the bad guy role. Or, from his perspective, Xi must uphold Chinese sovereignty in the South China Sea, no matter the reputational cost.
For Hanoi, quiet diplomacy also fails because it once again, wrongly, presumes Beijing cares that if video or word gets out about its assertiveness, then that would somehow harm Chinese interests. Hanoi's thinking on this matter seems to be derived from the May 2014 experience in which Beijing placed an oil rig within Vietnam's EEZ off the Paracel Islands and only removed it after a monthslong standoff and publicizing China's breach of UNCLOS. But again, this was a different time, when Xi was still a relatively new leader, and besides, the causation is unclear—did condemnatory statements from ASEAN and the United States convince Beijing to remove the rig, or had its extraction work there simply ended?
Regardless, Hanoi seems convinced that keeping incidents quiet is the way to go unless or until it needs to punish Beijing by releasing the details of incidents in the region. Yet there is simply no evidence that this approach works.
Rather than focusing on transparency or opacity, the Philippines and Vietnam should come up with more substantive and comprehensive strategies.
Rather than focusing on transparency or opacity, the Philippines and Vietnam should come up with more substantive and comprehensive strategies. The Philippines, for example, should consider floating activation of the U.S.-Philippines MDT, at least Article III, which calls for bilateral negotiations on a challenge. It could also seek to rewrite the MDT to encompass necessary responses to Chinese gray zone tactics. Manila could further ask the United States to clarify that territories within Manila's EEZ are legitimately part of the Philippines and request armed U.S. Coast Guard or Navy escorts to resupply Second Thomas Shoal.
Although Vietnam does not have a security alliance with the United States, it could similarly request the United States to do more and thus signal collective resolve. This could include the U.S. Coast Guard or Navy participating in joint patrols as well as joint U.S.-Vietnam exercises. Hanoi's strict defense policy tends to forbid these activities, but if the situation appreciably worsens, then it also reserves the right to bend or break its own rules. The United States could similarly make a statement clarifying the territorial integrity of features that fall within Vietnam's EEZ.
Unfortunately, there is no silver bullet to resolving China's rising assertiveness throughout the South China Sea. But what is obvious at this point is neither transparency nor opacity is working—and updated strategies should and must be considered.
