Wit and light win the day against China

In a three-decade-long military standoff with China over one of the world’s critical waterways, the Philippines has now deployed its latest response. Last month, it sent a 40-page comic book to schools, full of colorful stories about the country’s well-recognized claims to its maritime territory in the South China Sea.

The aim of the graphic novelette, said officials, is “to put forward the truth” against China’s disinformation campaign – which includes a narrative of peaceful intent in grabbing islands far from its shores – and to inspire young Filipinos “to protect what is rightfully ours.”

“It is crucial for us to shed light on these actions as transparency is a powerful tool in combating misinformation,” said national security adviser Eduardo Año.

The comic book adds to a very successful campaign by the government in Manila to invite journalists to film Chinese ships that are using rough tactics, such as water cannons and lasers, against Philippine vessels defending shoals clearly within the Southeast Asian nation’s exclusive economic zone.

In 2016, the Philippines won a crucial ruling from an international court that its claims are legal under the Law of the Sea treaty. Its “transparency initiative” since then, which spotlights China’s aggressive actions, has won it global support as well as military assistance from Japan, France, Australia, and the United States.

“People around the world have a much greater understanding of what China is doing,” wrote Takagi Yūsuke, a Japanese professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, on Nippon.com.

The Philippines is guided by a principle of openness and a reliance on the global norm of rule of law at sea as much as by a military readiness against China. “We have strong faith in humanity,” said Commodore Jay Tristan Tarriela.

The approach also rejects “arguments based on fear of ... China, and pressing [instead] for transparency and accountability regarding the harm it has caused,” wrote Philippine academic Robert Joseph P. Medillo in the Singapore e-magazine ThinkChina. Rather than relying on a “prism of fear,” he stated, the Philippines has enlisted universal law and like-minded countries for its cause.

It has also deployed a comic book to shore up support at home.