I’ve written many times about China’s behavior in the South China Sea. Recently China has claimed that it had a “gentlemen’s agreement” with former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. The hitch here is that this alleged agreement was never written down and there’s no clear proof it existed at all.
In a statement on Thursday, the Chinese Embassy acknowledged that the deal was made during the Duterte administration. Referring to the pact as a “gentlemen’s agreement,” the embassy said it was “no secret” and was aimed at “managing the situation on the ground, maintaining peace and preventing conflicts.”
The embassy added that “relevant departments and agencies of our two sides had worked under its guidance, effectively maintaining peace and stability” at the shoal from June 2022, the start of the Marcos administration, through early February 2023.
China claimed that it has repeatedly briefed the current administration on the agreement. It asserted that the two sides agreed early this year on a new way to manage the resupplying of a Philippine warship grounded at Second Thomas Shoal, but afterwards, that arrangement was “unilaterally abandoned by the Philippine side for no good reason.”…
Separately, local news reports at the beginning of April cited Duterte-era official and former presidential legal counsel Sal Panelo, who denied the existence of a secret agreement.
China claims that it has been abiding by this secret agreement but the Philippines, which has become much closer to the US since the election of current president Ferdinand Marcos, has walked away from it. The problem is that even former president Duterte denies making any such agreement with China.
While he took an almost virulently anti-American stance during his 2016 visit to Washington’s chief rival, he has said he also did not enter into any agreement with Beijing that would have compromised Philippine territory. He acknowledged, however, that he and Xi agreed to maintain “the status quo” in the disputed waters to avoid war.
“Aside from the fact of having a handshake with President Xi Jinping, the only thing I remember was that status quo, that’s the word. There would be no contact, no movement, no armed patrols there, as is where is, so there won’t be any confrontation,” Duterte said.
Asked if he agreed that the Philippines would not bring construction materials to strengthen a Philippine military ship outpost at the Second Thomas Shoal, Duterte said that was part of maintaining the status quo but added there was no written agreement.
“That’s what I remember. If it were a gentleman’s agreement, it would always have been an agreement to keep the peace in the South China Sea,” Duterte said.
The AP story notes that handing China sovereignty over any land belonging to the Philippines would be an impeachable offense. So maybe former president Duterte has a motive for not remembering such an agreement. But he did apparently brag, after his meeting with Xi, that he had secured access for fishermen to Scarborough Shoal, which is one of the areas China and the Philippines have been fighting over.
In any case, a gentlemen’s agreement, even if it happened as China claims, is not a written treaty. If the former president can make such an agreement, the current president can unmake it. Indeed, President Marcos made clear he would do so. “Should there be such a secret agreement, I am now rescinding it,” he said.
And that’s really all there is to this. China knows it can’t enforce an agreement that was never written down or, apparently, even communicated to the incoming administration. Trying to hang their own belligerent behavior on this is just nonsense intended to cloud the issue.