This is John Bachelor, a dialogue between my good friend Gordon Chang at Gordon G Chang and my good friend

James Holmes of the Naval War College about the harassment by the Chinese Coast Guard,

the PLA Navy, of the Philippines off Second Thomas

Shoals of Spratly Island, South China Sea.

The harassment now includes a deliberate collision, a ramming, of a Philippines fishing boat in addition to again

using water cannon to intimidate the Philippine fishermen. China is making claims of the Philippine sovereign territory and backing it up with its enormous

fleet of so-called Coast Guard ships, which Jim assures me are regarded by the US Navy as warships.

So here's the dialogue about how China uses harassment and that there is not an adequate so far response in the escalatory logic of

intimidation in East Asia. This is Gordon Chang and James Holmes.

Jim, I've lost count, but I think our State Department in the Biden administration has issued five warnings that the United States is prepared to discharge its obligations to the

Philippines under the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty.

In other words, that we're prepared to use force against China.

President Biden on October 25th, while he was welcoming the Australian Prime Minister to the White House,

actually said the same things.

What is extremely disturbing is that China is ignoring these

warnings which can lead to the conclusion that deterrence has broken down.

Your comments.

Yeah, I think you're right to be disturbed about that. It's basically, and I hope these

debates are going on in a serious way. I trust they are in Washington and Manila and other capitals, but the standard language in a mutual defense pact refers to

mutual defense if an armed attack, an armed attack occurs occurs China has a China has stepped all the way up to that line and I think and I think you I think you can argue in fact I would argue that they have put they have put their toes on the line as far as what constitutes an armed attack.

However, politically speaking, it's simply hard to get friends and allies overseas on board with

using force if there's not if there's not if there's not sort of I guess

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