Rounding up the Phils/Taiwan mess: Take 3 =UPDATED=

A spider awaits prey in the early morn in a field near my house.

Well, by now I'm sure you know that the Ma Administration rejected the Philippines apology as "lacking in sincerity" (yes, well Mr. President, that's a common problem with apologies extracted at gunpoint). Sanctions have now been imposed. The Taipei Times listed....

The eight measures proposed yesterday morning by the government after a national security meeting, are issuing a travel warning that discourages Taiwanese from traveling to the Philippines, the suspension of high-level meetings at the World Health Assembly, the suspension of economic exchanges, the suspension of cooperation on agriculture and fisheries, the suspension of cooperation on technology, the suspension of negotiations on air space rights, the suspension of the visa-free program for Philippine nationals and that Taiwan would hold military exercises in disputed waters.

The first wave of sanctions — the suspension of the hiring of Philippine workers, recalling Taiwan’s representative to the Philippines and sending the Philippine representative to Taiwan back to Manila — also took effect yesterday after the Philippine government failed to meet the Ma administration’s demands by the president’s deadline.

These are truly over the top. For example, there's no travel threat to Taiwanese in the Philippines. Meanwhile the Navy and the Coast Guard held exercises today in a show of force. Oz Soapbox has a detailed review of the whole apology mess with a bonus observation -- he thinks China is dictating the Philippines' response (I do not agree).

The sanctions will continue until (KMT news organ):

The Premier stressed that the 11 retaliatory measures would remain in effect until the Philippine government formally fulfilled the ROC’s four stern demands in a positive and concrete manner, i.e., the Philippine government must formally apologize, punish the culprit (s) and indemnify the family of the deceased and the owners of the fishing vessel for property damages, as well as begin fishery agreement negotiations as soon as possible. The Premier disclosed that the government was currently assessing whether or not to adopt stronger measures in a third wave of sanctions.

Me Tarzan! (thumps chest).

Lots of commenting and observations. Ben over at Letters from Taiwan notes how neatly Manila has used the One China policy, which Ma supports, to avoid talking to Taipei. Ma is actually playing into Beijing's hands....

More LOLs today as permanent Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) obviously didn’t get the memo from David Lin over at MOFA, that Beijing’s One China policy means a) China is not cooperating with Taiwan on the spat with the Philippines and b) is actively blocking attempts by Taiwan and the Philippines to sign a fishing agreement. Wang, instead, is pissed off that Philippines President Aquino has cited the One China principle as why the highest levels of his government cannot comment directly or speak to Taiwan on the issue of the shooting incident (or “blame Beijing because they don’t want us to talk to you Government to Government as equal bilateral international state actors”):

First, although I disagree with his acceptance of the toxic One China policy, Aquino is exactly correct in what he says. No amount of indignant exclamations to the contrary will change that fact. Perhaps Ma ‘The Constitutionalist’ Ying-jeou now understands what Chen felt like when he was similarly rebuffed and belittled in the international community. No wonder the KMT is up in arms given that they used to haul Chen across the coals for every slight against Taiwan’s international standing as evidence of his provocative ideological stance on simply stating that de facto independent Taiwan should be treated with some respect as a nation state. This is deeply deeply embarrassing for them. Furthermore, it belies the utter failure of the Ma’s diplomatic truce and mutual non-denial chimeras. Dear Wang, the Philippines can treat you that way and they are treating you that way and if you have a problem with it perhaps you should call the Presidential office to enquire how your Party’s President’s One China policy is not delivering any meaningful growth in Taiwan’s international presence or soft or hard power.

One should also note that Ma promised to be a peacemaker, not a troublemaker, when he took office years ago. Yet here he is cranking up temperatures with Manila for no reason other than to pander to the local electorate.

Of course Ma may also be nudging the island toward China by making it appear it has no friends but Beijing. I've commented many times on how Ma's longterm policy with the US and Manila and other potential friends is one of keeping things irritated, to isolate Taiwan and help tip it into Beijing's hands by creating doubt and resignation among Taiwan's population. My man Ben also posted a useful piece from Stratfor on how Taiwan's South China Sea policies and other policies in the area play into Beijing's hands. The relationship between the One China policy and this mess is so obvious that the Taiwan government was forced to publish a statement denying it.

Another possibility: note that one of the four demands of Taipei is the opening of fishery negotiations with Manila. Looks like they want to use the fisherman's death as moral leverage to gain this concession. But of course as long as Manila adheres to Beijing's version of the One China policy, negotiations might be a problem.

Finally, a commenter on another forum observed that Ma might well be trying to imitate Beijing's bullying of Manila over the Scarborough Shoal.

I'm also wondering if Ma would be more conciliatory if Filipinos weren't so brown-skinned.

And with all this deployment of the Navy and shuttling military and Coast Guard hither and yon, anyone hearing calls for increased military spending? LOL.

The US, as noted in the State Department briefing I posted below this, is not taking a side. I hope AIT has people in there telling Ma to calm down. Reps Steve Chabot, longtime Taiwan supporter, and Eni  Faleomavaega, who frequently takes Beijing's positions, both fired off a press release calling on Manila to apologize. Hmmm.... could it have something to do with the tuna canneries in Faleomavaega's district of American Samoa, whose longline tuna fisheries are operated by Taiwanese (and Koreans).

Speaking of which, the DPP is frothing at the mouth in its attempt to move to the right of the KMT on this issue. If only the party had shown some statesmanship, hewed to the center, and called for cooler heads until after the investigation was over. Lamenting this failure, Ben once again put it well...

Now here they are rightly pointing out that the Once China policy belittles Taiwanese sovereignty but refusing an apology that might defuse the situation.  It doesn’t get much more uncoordinated and Keystone Cops.  It’s almost as if there’s an election coming up.

Meanwhile, for some strange reason Manila is not rolling over for Taipei. A Philippines paper carried a Xinhua report that the government there has refused to let Taipei into the investigation of what happened in the incident. The government probably isn't much concerned because, as a Filipino news site observed:

The hiring freeze imposed by Taiwan against overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in the aftermath of the killing of fisherman Hung Shih-cheng in disputed waters should have no significant impact on the Philippine economy, a top government official and an economist both said Thursday.

“There are only around 2,500 Filipinos deployed monthly [to Taiwan],” Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz told GMA News Online in a phone interview on Thursday when asked to comment on a Taiwanese media report.

She said that imposing other sanctions, such as sending the OFWs back home, would do more harm to Taiwan's economy than the Philippines'.

Baldoz estimated that there are around 85,000 OFWs working in Taiwan, a mere 0.0085 percent of the estimated 10 million Filipino workers around the world.

Of the 85,000, some 75 percent work in the manufacturing industry. The rest work in the personal service sector or in the fishing industry as fishermen.

Pulling out Filipino workers could make an impact on Taiwan's economy, especially the manufacturing industry, where they dominate the specialized work force, said Baldoz. There are Filipinos who have set up manufacturing and production companies there, she added.

“I don't think this [the job freeze] will be very significant economically,” agreed University of Asia and the Pacific senior economist Victor Abola, citing Taiwan's contribution to remittance and foreign direct investments (FDI).

“Investments or trade could be delayed, but that's just it. This is not something we will lose sleep about,” the economist added.

Aquino has been winning points among his own voters for his handling of foreign affairs, according to some reports I have read. There seems to be little incentive for Manila to kow-tow.

UPDATE: Forbes makes same point. Filipinos work in high tech where they are prized for, among others, their English skills. Also, this morning a friend and university prof told me the financial aid for his Phils grad students has been canceled. *sigh*

Finally, speaking of tensions, the drip-drip-drip against Okinawa continues. Global Times of China says that China should support Okinawan independence. Looking forward to that moment not far from now when Beijing starts diddling with Okinawan visas.

REFS: Interesting paper on military oversight of the Taiwanese fishing industry in the martial law era.
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Irritated Bellow Syndrome: Taiwan fisherman killed by Philippine Coast Guard, Media Feeding Frenzy Ensues

A couple of herons contemplate eastern Taichung, and are not impressed.

Unless you've been living in a cave or a foreign country, it's been impossible to miss the unseemly mess over the death of a Taiwanese fisherman at the hands of Philippines Coast Guard sailors. Let's roll that news:

(A Taipei Times report)

A total of 52 bullet holes were found on the Kuang Ta Hsing No. 28, Liu Chia-kai (劉嘉凱) from the Pingtung District Prosecutors’ Office, said after examining the 15-tonne vessel that is registered in Liouciou Township (琉球), Pingtung County.

Investigators found 10 holes on the port side, where the bullets penetrated parts of the boat that are quite thick. This means they may have been fired from “heavy weapons,” such as machine guns, Liu said.

..............

Taiwanese fisherman Hung Shih-cheng (洪石成), 65, was killed when the Philippine Coast Guard vessel opened fire in the incident on Thursday.

Prosecutors said Hung was killed by a bullet that penetrated the right side of his neck. Liu has asked that Hung’s body be taken to Kaohsiung for forensic examination.

My man Ben observes:

Neither too did this tragedy just happen absent any historical trend.  Conflicts between Taiwanese boats and Filipino fishing boats and the Philippines Coast Guard have been escalating in this same area for a number of years, most usually around the time of the tuna fishing season.

Watchers of the region will also have noted that the Philippines got a very figuratively bloody nose last year when the Chinese, using fishing boats which were then augmented by ‘Maritime Surveillance’ vessels and PLAN ships, literally invaded and occupied the Scarborough Shoal effectively annexing the area that is roughly 220km from the Filipino mainland.  This timeline shows that the spat between China and the Philippines over the Scarborough Shoal has a long history. It could be then that the PCG personnel on board the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) vessel that confronted Hung’s boat were over zealous, keen not to be embarrassed again.  This fatal incident, deriving from an almost annual showdown over access to valuable catch, might then be seen as an act of aggression displacement.  Not being able to displace the Chinese from their waters, they may have projected that frustration onto Taiwanese boats instead.  The difference in these incidents is that Scarborough Shoal is much closer to the Filipino mainland than the area in which the Hung shooting took place.  There is therefore lots of room for interpretation of whether the BFAR vessel had any authority to act in the area.  

As usual, with international incidents of this nature, there are multiple competing accounts of what happened and where.  Largely absent in the Taiwanese media is the claim by the PCG that Hung’s boat was one of four that were accosted and which refused to leave.  Also absent is their claim that Hung rammed his boat repeatedly into the BFAR vessel.   It boggles the mind, given all the brinkmanship by fishermen, Coast Guard and pseudo-naval vessels in the South and East China Seas in the last three years, that someone was not recording events on camera for evidence in this incident.  The Philippines certainly did not help their case when they initially denied being the area and then admitted firing on the craft.  That does not lend an air of credibility to their version of events but since there seems to be no video (or none made available to the media) the confrontation remains at the level of ‘he said, she said’.  

Ben's observations are spot on and his post should be read in its entirety. The mess has been escalated by our Golden Retriever media in Taiwan, which adopts the attitude of China (several locals I spoke to made this comparison) and seldom criticizes the actions of Taiwan abroad. I doubt many Taiwanese are really aware of the way Taiwanese fishing boats plunder the waters of other nations (I reviewed their behavior last year in this long post). Ben notes that this context is vital to understanding this incident... For example: "gang-rape of tuna" in Philippines waters shows how large the stakes are....

“Let us say there are eight fishing vessels that regularly poach in the waters of Aurora province daily from January to July, that means a total haul of 27,000 tons of tuna per factory ship during the period or 216,000 metric tons of tuna for all eight fishing vessels regardless if they are Japanese, Korean or Taiwanese," Hicap said.

According to Pamalakaya’s computation, the owners of the eight fishing vessels could have earned as much as $ 1.274 billion, or $160 million per fishing vessel, in just six months from tuna poaching in Aurora and other tuna-rich waters of the Philippines.

Such poaching also has another negative effect on Philippines: Taiwan longliners dump their hauls in local markets in the Philippines, driving down prices and hurting local producers, according to this paper.

In any case, President Ma Ying-jeou delivered an inevitable ultimatum to the Philippines government, politically necessary since the local press was in a typical frenzy...

The administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday gave the Philippines 72 hours to arrest those responsible for the death of a Taiwanese fisherman, issue a formal apology and compensate the victim’s family.

If Manila failed to respond to these demands within 72 hours, the government will freeze Philippine worker applications, recall the Republic of China (ROC) representative in Manila and ask the Philippine representative to return to Manila to help in the investigation, Presidential Office spokesperson Lee Chia-fei (李佳霏) told a news conference last night following a national security meeting presided over by Ma.

Since Taipei can seriously hurt Manila by denying applications for workers (and it has done that before, in 2011 over the deportation incident -- see below), it seems likely Manila will bow to the inevitable. The President did provide one moment of crass comedy when he asked for ten seconds of silence on behalf of the dead Taiwanese fisherman and then counted down the seconds out loud.

China jumped into the dispute, issuing condemnation of Philippines, the "most barbaric" country in the South China Sea. LOL. But this move highlights how, though there is no evidence for overt cooperation between Beijing and Taipei in fostering Chinese territorial expansion, situations like this give Beijing the opportunity to push such claims and to further prop up its claim to Taiwan, and give the appearance of cooperation between Taipei and Beijing, an important propaganda goal of Beijing. This propaganda campaign, as J Michael observes, is then picked up by local critics of Ma as if it were real, further helping Beijing.

Some of you might recall the 2011 flap over the deportation of Taiwanese fraudsters from Philippines to China (long post with many links). In that incident, Taipei put into place a go-slow on worker applications. Manila-Taipei relations, as that post noted, are not in good shape despite the economic links between the two nations.

RELATED:

• China's escalating claims on its neighbors, from Heritage
• Long piece on the history and growth of Taiwan's tuna fishing, but no mention of conflicts with other nations.

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!