South China Morning Post
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A Philippine coast guard ship (right) sails past a Chinese coast guard vessel on May 14, 2019, near the Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea. Photo: AFP
Opinion
My Take
by Maria Siow
My Take
by Maria Siow

South China Sea: Vietnam and Philippines aren’t a ‘clique’ out to ‘sabotage’ Beijing

  • China recently accused the two Southeast Asian countries of forming a ‘clique’ by broadening cooperation between their coastguards in the South China Sea
  • It is a catch-all term used by Beijing to accuse actors of harming its interests and the ‘international order’, whenever it is called out for its behaviour
Maria Siow
Maria Siow
Why you can trust SCMP

China has often made it clear that it opposes “cliques”, or countries coming together to counter, challenge or even undermine its interests.

This week, it poured scorn on the agreement signed between the Philippines and Vietnam aimed at broadening cooperation between their coastguards and to prevent incidents in the South China Sea.
Accusing Manila for “continuing its provocations in the South China Sea” which Beijing claims in its entirety, China’s nationalistic tabloid The Global Times said the Philippines had tried to form a “small clique” by signing the agreement with Vietnam.

Manila’s behaviour “will further complicate the situation in this region and sabotage political trust between all parties involved”, the newspaper said.

A term with negative connotations in China’s foreign policy lexicon, a “clique” was once defined in a report by state news agency Xinhua as a “regional anti-China coalition in the Asia-Pacific region”.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos (left) and Vietnamese President Vo Van Thuong in Hanoi on January 30. Photo: AFP

It is also a catch-all term used by Beijing when it feels isolated or threatened, or during times it is called out for its behaviour.

In 2021, when the leaders of the Quad – Australia, India, Japan and the United States – met for a summit to “ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific”, China’s foreign ministry lashed out at the group for “forming enclosed small cliques”, describing the move as a “sure way to destroy the international order”.
Amid accusations by then British foreign secretary Liz Truss that China had not condemned Russia’s aggression against Ukraine in 2022, China said international rules should not be defined by a certain “clique or bloc”.
At the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore in June last year, former Chinese defence minister Li Shangfu said the region needed open and inclusive cooperation and not “small cliques that are self-serving and exclusive”.
After the leaders of South Korea, the United States and Japan met at Camp David in August 2023, Beijing accused Washington of trying to revive the Cold War in the Asia-Pacific through “small cliques”. Photo: AP
Last August, after US President Joe Biden, Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol met at Camp David pledging to strengthen security while criticising China’s “dangerous and aggressive” moves in the South China Sea, Beijing accused Washington of trying to revive the Cold War in the Asia-Pacific through various “small cliques”.
In December, after US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin met his counterparts from Australia and Britain to forge a new agreement on increasing technology cooperation and information-sharing, China Daily ran a headline that read, “Perfidy and arrogance hallmarks of Aukus clique”.
While China’s sense of encirclement is palpable, even understandable, what should be borne in mind is that the sort of “cliques” it has hit out against in recent years are formed – structurally or loosely – by strong Western or European powers with “shared values”.
These nations work in tandem with their allies in Asia and the Pacific – mainly Australia, India, Japan and South Korea – which share similar democratic values and are mostly economically advanced.

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In the case of this week’s cooperation between the Philippines and Vietnam, it is clear the two Southeast Asian countries do not share similar values or ideology, but they have the common desire of protecting themselves in the South China Sea against Beijing.

Both are also traditionally reliant on China for trade, investments, and supply chains, particularly in the case of Vietnam, where its manufactured goods are highly dependent on imported Chinese components.

In other words, these two countries have little to no incentive to provoke or anger China, at risk of retaliation from their bigger neighbour.

Yet, they have reached out to each other to establish a communication hotline and share information between their militaries amid their ongoing skirmishes with Beijing in the South China Sea.

The modus operandi of “cliques” has been altered, from stronger Western nations coming together to counter China, to smaller, weaker countries doing likewise, and arguably at greater risk to their more vulnerable economies.

While Beijing will publicly continue to denounce “cliques” of any hue, privately it should ask itself why its smaller neighbours – far from “perfidious” and with little or no desire in “destroying the international order” – have banded together to purportedly challenge its interests.

Maria Siow is a senior correspondent at the Post’s Asia desk.

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