Issa urges House colleagues to learn from South China Sea crises

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Ca., urged his fellow members of Congress to educate themselves on the crises within the South China Sea region and protect international law.

The first keynote speaker at the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Fourteenth Annual South China Sea Conference said forces in the region need to operate legally within international law, which the People’s Republic of China has not been doing.

Issa, a senior member of the House Foreign Relations Committee, said the transition of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to China was peaceful, with a gradual change promise including two economic systems under one government. That promise was broken, he said.

“That promise will be broken again if Taiwan were to be merged officially back into China,” Issa said. “So, for the time being, the United States has to put a pause on closer relations with China, on turning over more power to China.”

Two protesters disrupted the representative’s keynote speech a couple minutes apart chanting “U.S. bases out now,” saying U.S. involvement and militarization in the Philippines should cease. Later, six more protesters with signs interrupted the keynote. All were escorted out of the event as their voices rang through the building.

“Every day I try to remind myself that the disruption of other people’s opportunity to express their free views is sometimes thwarted by people who silence them,” Issa said after the first two protesters left.

“So, every day, I close my windows and doors and try not to hear too much of that amplified speech, but at the same time, we are having a lively discussion about the best way not to put the Philippines in harm’s way and to keep them out of harm’s way,” Issa said.

Issa said there is “aggressive” activity in the region where rights to free travel on the open seas and territorial rights of Vietnam, Taiwan and the Philippines are being squashed by government backed Chinese vessels every day.

“So, we don’t have the luxury of saying, do nothing,” Issa said. “If we do nothing, we will see a swallowing up, directly and indirectly, of these countries and these territories.”

To stop aggressive activity on the waters, Issa said training and defense capabilities need to increase instead of just supplying boots on the group. He said sometimes countries in the region need to have their own form of a Coast Guard,

“We are looking at defense capability, and hopefully, if my aspirations and Senator Hagerty and others realize, we will be increasing the ability for the Philippines and throughout the region, people simply to say the rules of international law need to be obeyed, and to get them obeyed, sometimes you need to have your own, and I’ll call it Coast Guard, because I believe that’s really what a big part of it will be,” Issa said.

Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Ely Ratner, the conference’s afternoon keynote, said the U.S.’ alliance and commitments with the Philippines are “ironclad,” as the U.S. continues to support rights to fly, sail and operate where international law allows.

“Looking back, 2023 was a transformative year for making U.S. force posture in the Indo-Pacific more mobile, distributed, resilient and lethal,” Ratner said.

U.S. Force Posture Initiatives are included in the alliance with the Philippines to show military strength and readiness. Ratner said this year’s budget is an opportunity to deliver on the new agreements on force posture with the Philippines.