The South China Sea conflict has shaken up as a new player has entered the frame. The United States with its defense treaty with the Philippines has further sparked the conflict in the region. The United States wanting to secure a bigger presence in the region has deployed a mid-range missile system in the Philippines and under the pretext of joint military drills has been testing the weapon. The United States is testing the weapon’s capabilities to get a strategic staging point to defend Taipei from a Chinese attack. Both Russia and China condemn the use of the weapon in the region as they say it is a call to an arms race. Despite the concerns and condemnation that both China and Russia are saying, many Philippine officials say that they are not likely to remove the weapon. As officials have said they enjoy leaving China restless.
The conflict rising over the South China Sea dispute is also amidst Vietnamese efforts to lay claim to the waters. China has been creating artificial islands within the sea, which it has militarized and claims are there for defensive purposes. This is an issue for Vietnamese fishing communities, who are now being arrested and brutalized and not allowed to fish in waters they have historically been able to fish on. The route that Vietnam is taking towards setting claim to the sea is through ancestral ties.
China has such great military and economic capabilities that it brings into question whether or not it would even care about the ancestral ties Vietnam may claim it has. It would appear that it would be beneficial to the US and Vietnam to hold a treaty that could benefit both countries. It would give the US the presence it wants in the region and could lead to Vietnam securing a stronger presence too. Which it is going to need to show resistance to China.
As conflicts rise and if Vietnam is not able to achieve its goal of laying claim to the sea due to its ancestral ties, there could be a shift in geopolitical partnerships. As stated previously China’s building of artificial islands, which are becoming militarized, and their recent arrest and stoppage of Vietnamese fishing in the sea could mean a US allyship. There could be issues that arise like China already indicating that the US is beginning an arms race against them, or just the presence of the US in the region in general as an issue to both China and Russia. It will be interesting to see how things unfold but these joint military drills between the US and the Philippines could be the beginning of a shift in the region and South China Sea conflict.
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