The Philippine's Xianbin Reef stunt is not deterrence

On 18 September, a Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources vessel deliberately changed course and accelerated across a Chinese ship's bow, causing a collision. Manila at once packaged the encounter as a "humanitarian" fuel-delivery mission and a case of "deliberate ramming", releasing footage, deck photos, and statements tailored for foreign media.

The routine is familiar by now: a frontline agency vessel enters waters under China's jurisdiction, invites a close-quarters encounter, and turns the images into a victimhood narrative. The point is not a sudden concern for fishermen. It is another effort to keep a manufactured crisis politically useful.

Xianbin Reef is no accidental backdrop. In recent years Philippine vessels have repeatedly tested the feature, at times lingering illegally for long periods, damaging the reef and rehearsing the same "presence first, publicity later" playbook once used at Ren'ai Reef. Each new incident looks less like an isolated operational mishap than another episode in a series.

In July, Philippine political and security elites marked 10 years since the illegal and invalid 2016 arbitral award by arguing that a so-called "legal victory" must now be turned into "real deterrence". That slogan should be read as a statement of intent, not a description of law.

The award exceeded the tribunal's mandate, rested on contested fact-finding, and cannot confer sovereignty over features that were never Philippine territory under the treaties that defined the country's international boundaries.

Ten years of official remembrance have not repaired those defects. They have kept a political asset in circulation. Periodic maritime stunts are the operational side of that remembrance — if the paper award cannot change the map, staged encounters at sea are meant to change the mood.

The growing adventurism of the Philippine military and coast guard therefore serves more than one master.

First, it feeds cognitive and public-opinion warfare. Damaged railings, shouted warnings, claims of "civilian" victimization, and carefully timed social-media releases are not by-products; they are built into the mission. The aim is to accumulate footage that can be framed as Chinese "coercion" and pushed through Western and regional media.

Second, it serves institutional self-interest. Regular incidents keep the South China Sea on the domestic agenda, underline the operational relevance of the armed services and coast guard, and help draw political backing, equipment, and training from the United States and other extra-regional partners.

For agencies whose budgets, prestige, and public profile rise with the temperature at sea, silence costs and agitation pays. Stirring the waters from time to time is cheaper than solving problems and more useful than restraint.

The timing is equally telling. High-level China-US exchanges are approaching, including a leaders' meeting meant to manage a constructive and stable relationship. In Manila, anti-China forces have grown more animated, not less.

Some fear the Philippines could be treated as expendable if Washington and Beijing find even limited tactical accommodation on larger issues. Maritime confrontation then becomes a reminder to Washington that Manila still has "utility", and serves as a public display of loyalty to the alliance.

Others miscalculate in the opposite direction: they assume Beijing — preoccupied with the bilateral agenda — might soften its response for the sake of atmosphere. The collision at Xianbin Reef was therefore also a probe — a test of whether China would treat sovereignty and maritime rights as variables in great-power scheduling.

That assumption is wrong. China's position on territorial sovereignty over the Nansha Islands and its rights in the adjacent waters is not a concession to be traded against the calendar of summitry.

Nor are these actions driven only by maritime disputes. They are deeply rooted in Philippine domestic politics. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. faces governing pressures and must look ahead to the 2028 presidential election.

To keep his camp in power and reduce the risk of later political reckoning, he needs the support of the military and police establishment. He cannot afford a rupture with that establishment over its destabilizing conduct toward China.

The practical result is indulgence: frontline agencies are allowed to manufacture incidents, after which the political center issues statements of solidarity rather than control. China-Philippines relations are thus subordinated to personal and family political calculations. A relationship that could be managed is treated as disposable whenever it collides with succession politics.

At the same time, figures such as Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro have strong incentives to project toughness toward China. Hardline rhetoric brings visibility, consolidates a nationalist constituency, and keeps 2028 options open. Beijing's earlier sanctions against him only raised his domestic profile.

In the current political climate, confrontation is a form of campaigning. It is not implausible that informal understandings already exist between these hardline forces and elements of the current administration: the security establishment supplies pressure at sea, the political leadership supplies cover, and both extract domestic advantage. In that bargain, stability with China is the item most easily sacrificed.

The external context compounds the problem. China and the United States are working to build a more constructive and stable relationship, yet Washington's strategy of using maritime issues to constrain China has not fundamentally changed.

The United States remains the main extra-regional factor affecting stability in the South China Sea. Deepening Philippine-US military and security cooperation — expanded access arrangements, joint patrols, intelligence sharing, combined exercises, and political cover — has given Philippine frontline agencies a sense of impunity.

They act as if they can stage encounters, harvest the propaganda value, and expect Washington to absorb the strategic downside. Alliance rhetoric about "deterrence" is thus turned, on the water, into a license for risk-taking by the smaller partner.

This is a dangerous illusion, and not only for Manila. If the United States does not restrain the adventurism of the Philippine military and coast guard, it risks being drawn into an unintended confrontation.

A collision, an injury, or a misread maneuver can escalate faster than any joint statement can manage. The political entrepreneurs who benefit from televised incidents would not bear the cost of a China-US crisis generated by their tactics. Regional stability would.

So would the constructive and stable relationship Washington and Beijing say they want to preserve. Restraining an ally is not a favor to China; it is a requirement of responsible management of great-power relations.

Inside the Philippines, more objective and rational voices still exist in the foreign-policy community, business circles, and parts of the political class that understand the costs of perpetual confrontation.

They should press greater restraint on the security establishment. Differences over sovereignty and maritime entitlements will not disappear in the short term. They can, however, be handled.

Quiet communication, an end to theatrical "resupply" and "livelihood" missions designed mainly for cameras, and a return to bilateral consultation would let China-Philippines relations settle rather than lurch from incident to incident. Management is not capitulation.

It is the only method that has ever kept the South China Sea from becoming a permanent crisis theater.

Regional countries should see the latest episode for what it is. Manila gains no territorial advantage, no legal upgrade, and no lasting deterrent effect.

Cognitive and public-opinion campaigns have never put meaningful pressure on China and will not do so now. China's sovereignty over the Nansha Islands, including Xianbin Reef, rests on history and international law, not on a 2016 award China has consistently rejected as null and void.

Extra-regional applause and alliance talking points cannot substitute for title. Periodic maritime spectacles — driven by domestic political needs and external encouragement — amount to self-inflicted embarrassment.

They do not rewrite facts. They only confirm that some in Manila still prefer performance to problem-solving — and that performance, repeated often enough, becomes a strategy of diminishing returns.

The author is the director of the Center for International and Regional Studies, National Institute for South China Sea Studies.

The views don't necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

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