These incidents are not only causing great anger in the Philippines. There are regular protests against China and anti-Chinese sentiment is growing in general. In a survey in spring 2024, almost 80 percent of citizens surveyed in the Philippines said they wanted to defend their country. At the same time, there is hardly any other country in which the USA is more popular among the population, even though former President Rodrigo Duterte held anti-American positions.
The Philippines will probably not give in, not least because the USA has managed to form a security alliance against China in the region. This includes regional powers such as Australia, South Korea and Japan. China’s aggressive expansion policy in the South China Sea means that countries such as Vietnam are also slowly fleeing into the arms of the Americans. Beijing is increasingly isolated.
Nevertheless, Chinese President Xi Jinping will not give up his territorial claims. The sea area is too important for China for security reasons. If Beijing controls the South China Sea and can station missiles and fighter planes on the reefs, an invasion of Taiwan would be easier to implement.
Alexander Görlach, Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs in New York, told the “Münchner Merkur”: “In the end, Beijing is trying to turn the international sea into a national water. This can only succeed if the islands in the West Philippine Sea are Chinese.” The Philippines have renamed their sea area in the South China Sea the “West Philippine Sea”. Görlach added: If China gets its way, there would be an “acute danger of war with the United States and its NATO partners in the free world”.
