India extends tacit support to Philippines as China conducts war drill in disputed South China Sea shoal

New Delhi: Even as New Delhi and Beijing may have another engagement on the sideline of the G20 summit in Rio De Janeiro next week, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar sent out a subtle message to China underlining India’s commitment to upholding international laws.

Jaishankar attended an event to mark the 75th anniversary of the establishment of India’s diplomatic relations with the Philippines.“Our ties (the ties between India and the Philippines) are rooted in democratic values, pluralistic ethos, and economic commonalities,” he said, adding, “We are both nations deeply committed to upholding international law, norms and rules”.

His comment signaled New Delhi’s tacit support to Manila on a day Chinese People’s Liberation Army held sea and air combat drills at the disputed Scarborough Shoal, making yet another move to intimidate the Philippines into giving up its claim over uninhabited shoal in the South China Sea.

The war drill at Scarborough Shoal came three days after Beijing on Sunday published geographic coordinates for the baselines around Scarborough Shoal claimed by both China and the Philippines but currently under occupation of the communist country. Manila lodged a protest over the publication of baseline around the disputed South China Sea territory by China.

India’s own territorial dispute with China was also in the focus recently as Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping had a bilateral meeting on the sideline of the BRICS summit at Kazan in Russia on October 23 and noted that a recent agreement between the Indian Army and the Chinese PLA on arrangement of patrolling in Depsang and Demchok in eastern Ladakh had ended the more-than-four-year-long military stand-off along the disputed boundary.

Both Modi and Xi will be in Rio De Janeiro next week to attend the G20 summit being hosted by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri on Wednesday declined to confirm or rule out the possibility of another bilateral meeting between the prime minister and president of China on the sideline of the G20 summit

Jaishankar and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, both on the entourage of the prime minister, may however have meetings with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who is likely to accompany Xi to Rio De Janeiro. Wang and Doval are also special representatives of India and China for boundary negotiation.

The South China Sea is a major waterway and the sea lanes in this region account for over US Rs 2,74,38,125 crore ($3.25 trillion) of international trade. It has been at the centre of a territorial conflict between China and its maritime neighbours, like Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, and the Philippines. An Arbitral Tribunal constituted under the United Nations Convention on Law of Seas (UNCLOS) 1982 delivered a unanimous decision in 2016 rejecting China’s expansive claims on the South China Sea. China, however, steadfastly refused to adhere to it.

New Delhi in June 2023 offered Manila a Line of Credit (LoC) to help it meet its defence requirement amid the increasing belligerence of China in the Indo-Pacific region. Earlier, the Philippines signed a contract worth about Rs 3,165 crore ($374.96 million) to procure BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles manufactured in India in collaboration with Russia.