Philippines Vs Taiwan... Troubled Waters

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nemo

Junior Member
vesicles said:
Bad judgement or not, a competent govn't should present a unified front. If they want to apologize, fine. Apologize. If they don't want to apologize and want to play hard ball, fine as well. Play hard ball. But be consistent about it. You canNOT keep changing your position back and forth 4 times in one night. That is chaos. That is the very definition of chaos. And everything scenario you listed is evidence for it.
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Since when is Philippine government competent? Not even their own citizens will agree to that.

Actually, Philippine government's positions are fairly consistent -- 2nd and 4th draft. The diplomat just gave away something they shouldn't -- either they are not authorized, or they are not told why they cannot.

Plawolf's theory is that Philippine government order the hit on the fishing boat, hence they cannot admit to full investigation and punishment of those involved. I think the diplomats were not told of that fact because they are not the core member of the administration. This version of events, while incredible, is more likely to be true because no one send out negotiator without giving them authority to negotiate and what the bottom line is. But in this case they cannot tell the whole story to the negotiators because they are guilty.
 
vesicles

vesicles

Colonel
nemo said:
Actually, Philippine government's positions are fairly consistent -- 2nd and 4th draft. The diplomat just gave away something they shouldn't -- either they are not authorized, or they are not told why they cannot.
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Consistent? Is that how you judge consistency? 50% black and 50% white? That is consistency? So you would be satisfied if your GPS can only guide you to your destination 50% of times, while the other 50% of times, your GPS will lead you in the opposite direction, in which you want to go?

Again, this is not simply a diplomat made a boo boo. If he said something verbally, then yes, he might have given away something he shouldn't. It was an official letter with the Govn't seal and everything. It was a legal document. If what you said was true, and he's not clear whether he should issue that letter, he should definitely ask ( the simple fact that he's not clear what he can/cannot do suggest chaos). And he should realize that he made a mistake when that second letter came out contradicting his words in the first letter. Then the third letter should never even be drafted. Mistakes should be recognized and corrected when that second letter came out. Yet, 2 more letters were sent, contradicting one another. whatever decision they made, be it some carefully planned schemes or an incident, they should be consistent. I don't know any other way to describe it, but chaos...
 
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nemo

Junior Member
vesicles said:
Consistent? Is that how you judge consistency? 50% black and 50% white? That is consistency? So you would be satisfied if your GPS can only guide you to your destination 50% of times, while the other 50% of times, your GPS will lead you in the opposite direction, in which you want to go?

Again, this is not simply a diplomat made a boo boo. If he said something verbally, then yes, he might have given away something he shouldn't. It was an official letter with the Govn't seal and everything. It was a legal document. If what you said was true, and he's not clear whether he should issue that letter, he should definitely ask ( the simple fact that he's not clear what he can/cannot do suggest chaos). And he should realize that he made a mistake when that second letter came out contradicting his words in the first letter. Then the third letter should never even be drafted. Mistakes should be recognized and corrected when that second letter came out. Yet, 2 more letters were sent, contradicting one another. whatever decision they made, be it some carefully planned schemes or an incident, they should be consistent. I don't know any other way to describe it, but chaos...
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You are not thinking this through.

First draft -- Taiwan's demand agreed to by Philippine based on their understanding of what's acceptable to Philippine. The head of the mission flew back to Manila for consultation and approval.

2nd draft -- Philippine's offer. This is when final meeting before deadline took place.

3rd draft -- Taiwan's final offer.

4th draft -- Philippine's final offer. And the negotiation broke down.

It seems to me that no one told the diplomat that the most important issue for Philippine is full investigation and punishment for those involved. If Philippine actually cared about 'One China', it would have offered everything else but 'Republic of Philippine' agreed to on the 4th draft. Instead, that was agreed to but not everything else -- reverse of what anyone who knows the international politics would expect.

So covering their own ass is deem more important than wrath from China. Given the situation in South China Sea, don't you think this is fishy? Hence I agree with plawolf's assessment that they are trying to cover up something even more serious -- a real casus belli.
 
MwRYum

MwRYum

Major
Even if there's no conspiracy and it's just an incident of major league FUBAR, it's actually understandable that the Philippines government want to sweep everything under the rug - look, after the Manila incident, which the FUBAR was broadcasted live to audience around the world, none in the whole command food chain got even a slap on the wrist in the end, and their so-called investigations was ever more laughable both in its execution and presentation.

The long and short is, they didn't even bother about accountability, or even throw a rank-and-file to take the blame; it's the whole "nothing happened, business as usual" all over again.
 
L

leibowitz

Junior Member
MwRYum said:
Even if there's no conspiracy and it's just an incident of major league FUBAR, it's actually understandable that the Philippines government want to sweep everything under the rug - look, after the Manila incident, which the FUBAR was broadcasted live to audience around the world, none in the whole command food chain got even a slap on the wrist in the end, and their so-called investigations was ever more laughable both in its execution and presentation.

The long and short is, they didn't even bother about accountability, or even throw a rank-and-file to take the blame; it's the whole "nothing happened, business as usual" all over again.
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My college friend at State just had his Memorial Day vacation canceled because he and his boss have to conduct behind-the-scenes 'shuttle diplomacy' between Taiwan and the Philippines. Things are apparently so bad not even back-channel discussions are happening anymore.

In his words:

"One side is treating this way too hard and the other side is taking it way too easy. We've gotta find a middle path here or else"
 
bluewater2012

bluewater2012

Junior Member
nemo said:
You are not thinking this through.

First draft -- Taiwan's demand agreed to by Philippine based on their understanding of what's acceptable to Philippine. The head of the mission flew back to Manila for consultation and approval.

2nd draft -- Philippine's offer. This is when final meeting before deadline took place.

3rd draft -- Taiwan's final offer.

4th draft -- Philippine's final offer. And the negotiation broke down.

It seems to me that no one told the diplomat that the most important issue for Philippine is full investigation and punishment for those involved. If Philippine actually cared about 'One China', it would have offered everything else but 'Republic of Philippine' agreed to on the 4th draft. Instead, that was agreed to but not everything else -- reverse of what anyone who knows the international politics would expect.

So covering their own ass is deem more important than wrath from China. Given the situation in South China Sea, don't you think this is fishy? Hence I agree with plawolf's assessment that they are trying to cover up something even more serious -- a real casus belli.
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The drafts I think are all plan to barter away full responsibility from the Philippines government in the beginning and to see if Taiwan would take this bait. What I find interesting is, amidst Taiwan naval drill U.S. ambassador to the Philippines praise the Philippines government expression of regret, and agreed to an investigation. The Philippines government, suddenly rejected joint investigation with Taiwan.
 
N

nemo

Junior Member
MwRYum said:
Even if there's no conspiracy and it's just an incident of major league FUBAR, it's actually understandable that the Philippines government want to sweep everything under the rug - look, after the Manila incident, which the FUBAR was broadcasted live to audience around the world, none in the whole command food chain got even a slap on the wrist in the end, and their so-called investigations was ever more laughable both in its execution and presentation.

The long and short is, they didn't even bother about accountability, or even throw a rank-and-file to take the blame; it's the whole "nothing happened, business as usual" all over again.
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Things are way beyond FUBAR. Since when the protection of some badly behaved individual out weights the interest of a nation? We are talking about full sanctions -- stopping of tourism -- 100k tourist per year, almost 90k foreign workers, and the de facto lost of the whole northern EEZ. That's worth protecting the few who clearly acted outside their legal authority?

That's why it's more likely there is something more serious -- else Philippine would have folded already.
 
solarz

solarz

Brigadier
nemo said:
Things are way beyond FUBAR. Since when the protection of some badly behaved individual out weights the interest of a nation? We are talking about full sanctions -- stopping of tourism -- 100k tourist per year, almost 90k foreign workers, and the de facto lost of the whole northern EEZ. That's worth protecting the few who clearly acted outside their legal authority?

That's why it's more likely there is something more serious -- else Philippine would have folded already.
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Of course there's something far more serious. The Aquino administration is built on an appearance of tough foreign policy. Did you forget the language used by PH media in the beginning of this incident? They referred to the TW fishermen as "poachers" and claimed that the coast guard was defending the sovereignty of their nation.

With that kind of setup, how can you expect the Aquino administration to just back down?
 
N

nemo

Junior Member
solarz said:
Of course there's something far more serious. The Aquino administration is built on an appearance of tough foreign policy. Did you forget the language used by PH media in the beginning of this incident? They referred to the TW fishermen as "poachers" and claimed that the coast guard was defending the sovereignty of their nation.

With that kind of setup, how can you expect the Aquino administration to just back down?
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I will let you be the judge which cause more political damage:

1: "We are sorry a few rogue acted clearly out of their legal authority."

2: "We are powerless. We will agree to whatever you say."

3: 87000 middle class people and their families blame you for the loss of their jobs. Tens of thousands -- may be hundreds of thousands of people who depended on the sea for their livelihood blame you for the lost of your whole northern EEZ. Hundreds of thousands of people who depend on tourism blame you for the loss of business. But you can claim that you didn't back down.
 
solarz

solarz

Brigadier
nemo said:
I will let you be the judge which cause more political damage:

1: "We are sorry a few rogue acted clearly out of their legal authority."

2: "We are powerless. We will agree to whatever you say."

3: 87000 middle class people and their families blame you for the loss of their jobs. Tens of thousands -- may be hundreds of thousands of people who depended on the sea for their livelihood blame you for the lost of your whole northern EEZ. Hundreds of thousands of people who depend on tourism blame you for the loss of business. But you can claim that you didn't back down.
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I would say #1.

You are making two problematic assumptions.

1- You assume that TW can force PH to pay for their act. That is not clear from the current developments.

2- You assume that the PH people will blame the Aquino administration for the loss of their jobs. Remember that this is the same administration that is still being seen as "tough on foreign policy" even after completely losing the Scarborough Shoal stand-off.
 
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