May 29, 2012
Back Channel
By Alejandro Del Rosario
Manila Standard Today
By Alejandro Del Rosario
Manila Standard Today
There’s an interesting and interlocking sidebar to the South China Sea territorial dispute. It is a tale of three strong-willed women who have been thrust into a convergence zone of conflict of national interests. On the soft shoulders of these hard-nosed negotiators in the field of diplomacy rests the hope of finding a solution to the not-too-calm waters of the South China Sea.
The first woman is Ambassador Sonia Brady who has been drawn out of retirement to provide the “old China hand” card to deal with the Mandarins in Beijing. She was our ambassador to Beijing from 2006 to 2010.
The second femme fatale (only to men who can’t stand up to the diplomatic skills of these women) is Ambassador Fu Ying who was Chinese ambassador to the Philippines from 1998 to 2000. Madame Fu Ying is presently China’s Vice Foreign Minister with whom our Ambassador Brady would have to counteract on the sensitive issue of the South China Sea, and the flashpoint in the Scarborough Shoal.
Ambassador Brady, before her assignment as envoy to Beijing, was also the DFA’s undersecretary for policy, the counterpart of Fu Ying’s vice foreign minister rank.
The third, but not least of these three women deeply involved in the high-stakes game of global poker, is US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. She recently incurred Chinese ire with her statement that China has “exceeded her claims beyond the maritime limits provided in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.”
China which has staked a sweeping claim over the entire South China Sea found Clinton’s comment as meddling by a non-claimant country. Beijing’s official position is that the conflicting claims in the SCS can only be resolved bilaterally and without multilateral intervention.
A widening Washington involvement is upsetting Beijing. Aside from providing Manila with two naval vessels to strengthen its maritime security, US Secretary of State Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta also met with their Philippine counterparts, Secretaries Albert del Rosario and Voltaire Gazmin in the US capital last month.
Before Clinton’s remark that China has exceeded her claims beyond the scope of UNCLOS, Beijing has never reacted directly to oft-repeated US statements that vital sea lanes in the South China Sea must be kept open to navigation.
To the Washington watchers in Beijing, the Clinton statement gave clarity as to whose side the US is on. America has always been considered a Pacific power since it sailed into Manila Bay to take over the islands from the Spanish colonizers. The reach of its naval power extends from San Diego in California to Cam Ranh Bay during the Vietnam war. Its forward position of military deployment is manifested in its bases in Japan, Korea and the US territory of Guam.
But to go back to the two principal players in this tug of war over riches beneath the sea, Ambassadors Brady and Fu Ying are both well cast into the roles each will play in the service of their country.
Early in her career, Brady had a previous posting in the Chinese capital as Philippine consul. She has a background in international relations, philosophy and journalism—important tools in diplomatic dialogue. Sonia Cataumber, my classmate at the University of Santo Tomas, was married to a New Zealander diplomat surnamed Brady who had since passed away.
Fu Ying, aside from postings as ambassador to Indonesia, Australia and the United Kingdom, is a woman of letters. She has published articles in The Guardian, including one in the London Daily Telegraph criticizing Western media for demonizing China. She is a graduate of University of Kent. Indeed, both sides won’t have a problem of losing something in English translation when the two women sit down to dialogue. Although an ethnic Mongolian born in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, Fu Ying started her career as an English translator for the Chinese foreign ministry
Ambassador Fu Ying has published a literary essay, appropriately titled “If the West Can Listen to China.”
The summer games to be held in London this August would surely bring back memories of her designation as Olympic torch bearer in the British capital for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Amid a backdrop of slight snow dusting the ceremonial run, Fu Ying and the Chinese delegation were mobbed by unruly English thugs protesting China’s human rights violations in Tibet.
(Published in the Manila Standard Today newspaper on /2012/May/30)
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