China’s ‘cabbage strategy’ not a healthy topic — Palace

From the Daily Tribune (Nov 3): China’s ‘cabbage strategy’ not a healthy topic — Palace

The Palace refused to bite into the “cabbage strategy” that a Chinese military official was quoted by New York Times as saying as being employed in the disputed Scarborough Shoal in a news article on the territorial dispute.

Presidential deputy spokesman Abigail Valte opted to keep mum on the alleged Chinese naval strategy in the article titled “A Game of Shark and Minnow.”

Valte considered the statement, despite being made by a top Chinese military officer as not representative of the official position of the Chinese government.

The strategy supposedly involved the deployment of layers of civilian, government and military ships to maintain Chinese claim on the contested shoal.

“I did also see that particular (issue) in the New York Times article, but at this point, we won’t comment on that yet, primarily because while a Chinese General may have indeed said that, we don’t want to automatically attribute that to the Chinese government immediately. It would be better for us to not comment on that matter yet,” Valte said.

China’s military Major General Zhang Zhaozhong told New York Times that since April 2012, the Chinese navy had taken measures to seal and control the areas around the shoal which it Chinese government calls as the Huangyan Island, a report in the China Daily Mail said.

“The fishermen conduct normal production there. In the area around the island, fishing administration ships and marine surveillance ships are conducting normal patrols while in the outer ring there are navy warships. The island is thus wrapped layer by layer like a cabbage. As a result, a cabbage strategy has taken shape,” Zhang said.

Zhang said: “If the Philippines wants to go in, in the outermost area, it has first to ask whether our navy will allow it. Then it has to ask whether our fishery administration ships and marine surveillance ships will allow it. Therefore, our fishermen can carry out their production safely while our country’s marine rights and interests as well as sovereignty are safeguarded,” Zhang added.

Zhang further described the “cabbage strategy” as entailing surrounding a contested area with so many boats — fishermen, fishing administration ships, marine surveillance ships, navy warships — that “the island is thus wrapped layer by layer like a cabbage.”

According to the NY Times article, “there can be no question that the cabbage strategy is in effect now at Ayungin (Scarborough) and has been at least since May. General Zhang, in his interview several months ago, listed Ren’ai Shoal (the Chinese name for Ayungin) in the P.L.A.’s “series of achievements” in the South China Sea,” he said.

He had already put it in the win column, even though eight Filipino marines (in a grounded Philippine navy ship) still live there. He also seemed to take some pleasure in the strategy, it added.

Of taking territory from the Philippines, he said: “We should do more such things in the future. For those small islands, only a few troopers are able to station on each of them, but there is no food or even drinking water there. If we carry out the cabbage strategy, you will not be able to send food and drinking water onto the islands. Without the supply for one or two weeks, the troopers stationed there will leave the islands on their own. Once they have left, they will never be able to come back.”

“It would be more proper for us to take the course of prudence rather than to react to every single thing that may cause tension in an already sensitive issue,” Valte said.

Valte also refused to comment on the impending military exercises between Malaysia and China.

“You know, we’d rather not comment on that now because normally there is a bilateral relationship among the countries, with our neighbors and we don’t interfere in those things,” Valte said.

Malaysia and China have scheduled joint military exercises beginning next year, nine years after having signed a memorandum of understanding on defense cooperation, Bernama National News Agency said.

Defence Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein, who is on his maiden visit to Beijing following his appointment to the post last May, said the exercises would encompass the three disciplines of land, sea and air.

He said the holding of the exercises was one of the matters agreed to during his meeting with China’s Defence Minister Gen Chang Wanquan to forge a more comprehensive strategic cooperation between the two countries.

“Both sides agreed to foster greater cooperation in defense, particularly in holding joint exercises, exchange of military personnel, establishing cooperation in the defense industry and fighting terrorism and transnational crime,” he said in a statement sent to Bernama from Beijing.

Hishammuddin’s visit was aimed at strengthening bilateral defence relations besides following up on the state visit of China’s President Xi Jinping to Malaysia from Oct 3 to 5.

Malaysia had officially established defense cooperation with China in 2005 but it had been confined to the exchange of visits and education.

Hishammuddin said his visit also coincided with the 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Malaysia and China, which would be celebrated next year.

http://www.tribune.net.ph/headlines/china-s-cabbage-strategy-not-a-healthy-topic-palace