A former senior U.S. defense official viewed as a possible successor
to Leon Panetta as defense secretary said the Philippines has recently
mistaken U.S. renewed engagement in the region as an opportunity to more
assertively pursue territorial claims against China.
Michèle Flournoy, who served as undersecretary for defense policy
until February 2012, said last month while the U.S. needed to send clear
signals of support for its allies in the region, it also needed to
ensure that support didn’t lead allies to act provocatively.
Naming the Philippines specifically, she said there was a risk of
Manila “mistaking U.S. support for an opportunity to be much more
assertive in staking their claims. I think we have to be careful that we
don’t feed that dynamic.”
The comments by Ms. Flournoy came during a question-and-answer
session at Australian National University on Nov. 29. Video of the
remarks was this week.
“I do think there is a danger of some of our friends occasionally
misreading, or miscalculating, in terms of the support that they have
from the United States,” Ms. Flournoy added.
Tensions between China and the Philippines escalated rapidly this
year over longstanding territorial disputes in the South China Sea. Many
feared a prolonged spring standoff between Chinese and Philippine
government vessels in the sea’s disputed Scarborough Shoal would trigger
conflict.
The standoff eventually drew down peacefully, but revived questions
over what the U.S. would do in the event of an armed China-Philippines
clash. The U.S. is obligated to protect the Philippines by a 1951
mutual-defense pact. It remains unclear, however, whether a conflict in
disputed territory would trigger the U.S. to act in defense of its Asian
ally.
The U.S. has repeatedly said it doesn’t take sides in territorial
disputes, a point Ms. Flournoy reiterated during her Australia comments.
The sea is claimed in whole or in part by China, Taiwan, the
Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei. It’s home to critical
shipping lanes and is also believed to hold rich oil-and-gas deposits.
Estimates on resource deposits vary widely, anywhere from 28 billion
barrels of oil or less to as much as 213 billion barrels, according to
some accounts. The ongoing tensions, however, have stunted resource
development in the South China Sea.