Tokyo and Manila cannot alter facts by bilateral fiat

A Chinese think tank report released on Thursday has laid bare the legal fallacies underpinning Japan and the Philippines' decision to launch so-called "bilateral maritime delimitation talks" related to the waters east of China's Taiwan island.

The report, issued by the China Institute for Marine Affairs under the Ministry of Natural Resources, is a forensic dissection of an initiative that violates international law and infringes upon China's legitimate rights and interests.

The "bilateral maritime delimitation talks" between Tokyo and Manila is the diplomatic equivalent of two neighbors entering your living room to discuss how they might subdivide the garden.

In the waters east of China's Taiwan island, China, Japan and the Philippines are neighboring states at sea. The proposed "delimitation" between Japan and the Philippines substantially overlaps with the exclusive economic zone and continental shelf to which China is entitled under international law.

Tokyo and Manila know this perfectly well.

The announcement of Tokyo and Manila, undertaken without consultation with China, violates international law and the duties of cooperation and self-restraint, the report said. That is precisely why this initiative is nothing more than geopolitical theatre.

By jointly playing the "delimitation" card, Japan and the Philippines are manufacturing a pretext for other agendas.

Japan is undergoing its most profound defence transformation since 1945, with spending approaching 2 percent of GDP and the acquisition of long-range strike capabilities.

The Philippines has abandoned years of strategic ambiguity, opening new bases to US forces under an expanded Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement, including facilities in northern Luzon that gaze directly across the Luzon Strait toward China's Taiwan region.

Against this backdrop, the sudden urgency to draw lines east of the Chinese island is no coincidence. The real agenda is to fill the final cartographic gap in Washington's first-island-chain strategy — to turn maritime boundaries into a bureaucratic fig leaf for an anti-China security network.

In response, China has already intensified its enforcement activities in the waters east of the Chinese island, sending an unmistakable signal: any attempt to delimit these waters without Chinese participation will be met with countermeasures.

The think tank report explicitly urges Japan and the Philippines to immediately cease their pursuit of bilateral delimitation and actively engage in negotiations with China.

If Tokyo and Manila believe they can create legal facts on the ground through bilateral fiat, they are inviting a robust response that will only strengthen Beijing's jurisdictional presence in the area.

What is most striking, however, is the intellectual poverty of the underlying strategic assumption that "external threats" are the most reliable glue for alliance cohesion.

The report from Beijing offers Tokyo and Manila a way out: cease the pursuit of bilateral delimitation and return to genuine negotiations. They would be wise to take it before this dangerous parlor game they started exacts a price they have not fully calculated.