South China Sea: is arrival of Philippines’ resupply mission a sign of Beijing backing off or China’s long game?

The development came just weeks after Chinese coastguard ships intercepted and fired water cannons to warn off a Philippine vessel that was on a similar resupply mission. China claimed the ship disregarded its repeated warnings and attempted to transfer construction materials to maintain and repair the ship.

While China’s response to Tuesday’s resupply mission was not a major shift, defence analysts suggested it was a more measured approach, signalling that Beijing did not want to fan tensions.

Collin Koh, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said it was “very clear that it appears to be a kind of ramp-off” for Beijing.

“I don’t see why China will feel that it is necessary now to escalate [tensions] at possibly a huge cost to its reputation, and possibly even alienate its friends in Asean,” he said, referring to the Southeast Asian regional bloc.

Particularly, Tuesday’s development came at a time when China is negotiating a South China Sea code of conduct with its Southeast Asian neighbours. This week, Manila is hosting diplomats from China and other regional countries to discuss the code of conduct that seeks to regulate behaviour in the resource-rich waterway.

Koh suggested there could also be some realisation on Beijing’s part that the Marcos government in Manila – unlike the previous Duterte administration that was friendlier towards China – could easily escalate the issue on the international stage.

The water cannon incident triggered responses from countries around the world, including the United States, Manila’s long-time ally.

“If the incident [this week] does escalate, China will seem to be the culprit. The Chinese will not be put in a good light … and it will poke the hornet’s nest of international condemnation,” Koh said.

Don McLain Gill, a lecturer at De La Salle University in Manila, similarly suggested that China’s pattern in the past decade showed that it was “quite wary” of conducting back-to-back provocations in the South China Sea for fear it could lead to major miscalculations.

“While China sought to show that it was present in the area, it did not try to greatly blockade the resupply mission in the Philippine waters due to the critical international backlash it faced a few weeks ago.”

Koh, who specialises in naval affairs in the Indo-Pacific, said China’s seemingly pared-back response could also be a way of Beijing pushing its narrative that countries in the region could settle their own conflicts.

China has repeatedly stressed that the US and other Western countries have been fanning tensions in the South China Sea to undermine stability in the region.

When China’s top diplomat Wang Yi was on his Southeast Asian tour this month, he carried the same message, saying that the US and others were “constantly making waves in the sea for fear that the South China Sea will no longer be chaotic”.

“If China keeps pushing the envelope on these water cannon [incidents], it’s essentially telling everybody that the South China Sea needs extra regional parties [to intervene],” Koh said.

On Wednesday, when asked about the incident, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said China had taken necessary measures and urged the Philippines to “immediately stop any actions that complicate the situation on the ground”.

But even as Beijing appeared to take a step back this time, Gill said it remained uncertain if that approach would last. He cited how China’s response suggested that it was “giving permission” to Manila to resupply, and that it could be used to justify a future blockade.