China escalating its bullying in West Philippine Sea?

WHEN the attention of the international community was focused on the pandemic, China escalated its bullying tactics in the South China Sea, preventing rival claimants from exploiting the living and non-living resources of the sea they are entitled to under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos) despite China's claims being completely without historical, factual or legal basis. China now appears to be escalating its illegal activities in the South China Sea once more, with the United States and its allies preoccupied with two wars, the Ukraine-Russia conflict and the Israel-Hamas conflict. Evidence of this was the brutal, intentional ramming by a Chinese coast guard vessel to interdict Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) vessels on a resupply mission to the MV Sierra Madre on Ayungin Shoal while the Chinese soldiers were barking to the Filipinos that the latter were trespassing the sovereign territory of China!

China's renewed aggressiveness is alarming because it borrows from the egregious tactics of Russian President Vladimir Putin to justify his unprovoked, criminal invasion of Ukraine. Among them is the use of false flags, the tactic of accusing the adversary of committing the very same acts it is committing to obscure the truth and mislead the Russian public about who was really responsible for the wrongful action. Putin, for example, called NATO the real aggressor for expanding its membership right to the border of Russia. Putin, moreover, said the purpose of his special military operation was to stop the neo-fascists in Ukraine when there were more neo-fascists in his camp; the Wagner Group was full of them donning the swastika on various parts of their bodies. After the incident of the collision of the coast guard vessels, China filed a counter-diplomatic protest proclaiming its sovereignty over almost the entirety of the South China Sea, with the nine-dash-line now a 10-dash line, and accusing the Philippines of being the one propagating dangerous and provocative acts in the West Philippine Sea. Certainly, the suitable destination of such a note is the wastebasket.