The recent declaration by Chinese academics that the Philippine province of Batanes is a “natural geographical extension” of Taiwan, an island democracy that China claims as its own, is part of Beijing’s “gray-zone” tactics to intimidate the Philippines, according to a Filipino scholar in Chinese studies.
Gray-zone tactics range from coercive military presence and air and maritime incursions to information operations and psychological pressure designed to bully other countries without crossing clear thresholds of war, Gloria Jumamil Mercado said in a phone interview with CoverStory on July 13.
Mercado is chair and CEO of the Asian Center for Excellence in Development and Security, and a visiting research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research (INDSR) in Taiwan.
She holds a Ph.D. in Mainland China studies from the National Sun Yat-sen University, a master’s degree in national security administration from the National Defense College of the Philippines, and an executive certification from Harvard Kennedy School.
“Beyond the threat of conventional conflict, Beijing has demonstrated a preference for gray-zone tactics,” Mercado said in a paper titled “Holding the Line Without a Shot: Batanes, Edca and Resilience-Based Deterrence in a Taiwan Strait Contingency.” Edca refers to the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement between the Philippines and the United States.
CoverStory has obtained a copy of the paper that she presented to the INDSR on May 25.
Philippines’ northernmost province
Batanes, an archipelago of 10 islands and the Philippines’ northernmost province, lies less than 200 kilometers from Taiwan and sits along the Luzon Strait and the Bashi Channel.
These narrow waterways connect the South China Sea [West Philippine Sea] to the Western Pacific and are now central to great-power competition in the Indo-Pacific, Mercado said.
Gray-zone tactics are well documented around Taiwan and in the South China Sea, much of which has been claimed by China over the objections of the Philippines and several other countries.
In the South China Sea, Beijing has built fortifications on coral reefs historically claimed by the Philippines, rammed Philippine supply ships and fishing boats, trained water cannons on Philippine vessels, used laser against Philippine aircraft, and barred Filipino fishermen from their traditional fishing grounds.
“In a heightened Taiwan contingency, such tactics could easily extend into the northern approaches of the Philippines,” Mercado said, adding:
“Peripheral territories with limited defenses and small populations are particularly vulnerable to such pressure — Batanes precisely because [the islands] are small, exposed, and symbolically significant.”
Her warning has come to pass.
Mercado wrote the paper before newsgd.com reported on July 2 that Chinese academicians had asserted that Batanes is part of Taiwan.
Newsgd.com (aka GDToday or “South”) is an English-language website operated by Nanfang Daily, which is controlled by the Guangdong provincial committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Dozens of academicians from Jinan University, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Nanjing University and other research institutions made this assertion at a symposium on June 30 at Jinan University, a national public university in Guangzhou, Guandong Province.
The academics claimed that the Philippines has no historical or legal basis for administering Batanes because the islands are a “natural extension” of Taiwan, giving China sovereignty over Batanes.
Part of Luzon shelf
The National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP) countered that the Chinese academicians’ conclusions “have no rational basis in substantive research.”
The NHCP said satellite and oceanographic data clearly show a continuous shelf extending from north Luzon to Batanes Islands and into parts of Taiwan.
“The Philippines claims a greater right over the subject territories from this perspective,’’ the NHCP said.
On July 9, The Global Times of People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the CCP’s Central Committee, reported the claims made at the symposium and urged China to assert sovereignty over the Batanes Islands.
Participants at the symposium proposed that China formalize this stance through intensified legal research, increased Coast Guard patrols and strategic military countermeasures.
In an article in The Global Times, Fan Wei, citing what he called Chinese international law scholars, said that from the standpoint of treaty law, the Batanes Islands do not form part of Philippine territory.
“Ju Hailong, dean of the School of International Studies at Jinan University, argued that the Batanes Islands fall entirely outside Philippine territorial demarcations laid down by the Treaty of Paris signed in 1898 by the US and Spain,” Fan wrote.
He added that the Treaty of Manila of 1946 confined post-independence Philippine territory to areas south of 20 degrees north latitude, a boundary that excludes the Batanes Islands, which are situated wholly north of latitude 20 degrees.
Tao people
The visit to Batanes last month of one of Taiwan’s indigenous groups, the Tao people of Lanyu (Orchid Island), who paddled for two days to the islands on a long boat, was even used by the Chinese academicians to lay claim to Batanes.
“Anthropological evidence confirms that the roughly 10,000 Ivatan residents of the Batanes share cognate languages, analogous customs and identical underground dwellings with the Tao people of Orchid Island in the Taiwan region,” Fan said, quoting Wang Yuanyuan, a research fellow at the Center for South China Sea History and Culture, National Institute for South China Sea Studies.
Wang added that surveys conducted by Filipino anthropologists in 2023 verified that the elderly inhabitants of Batanes still speak the Tao language — supposed irrefutable proof that their ancestors migrated from the Taiwan region some three to four millennia ago.
No basis
Nestor T. Castro, a Filipino anthropologist at the University of the Philippines, disputed Wang’s allegations on these grounds:
– The Ivatan and Tao languages belong to a linguistic group called the Western Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian language family that includes nearly all Philippine languages and those spoken in Malaysia, parts of Indonesia, Vietnam’s Champa region, and Madagascar.
– Long before the Chinese state existed, the Austronesian-speaking peoples reached Taiwan between 5,000 and 6,000 years ago, and the Philippines 4,200 to 5,000 years ago.
– The Tao, the indigenous people of Lanyu, are not Han Chinese. In the Philippines, “tao” or “tawo” is widely used as a term for “person.”
– Taiwan has not claimed Batanes as part of its territory.
Florencio “Butch” Abad, a former lawmaker representing Batanes and a former budget secretary, said the Tao people had descended from the Ivatans of Batanes who settled Lanyu centuries ago.
Abad said the Chinese academics’ claim has no basis in history or in law.
Filipino international law experts and Philippine officials have yet to respond to allegations that, based on treaties, the Batanes Islands do not form part of Philippine territory.
The symposium in Guangzhou was a direct response to the announcement on May 28 of maritime delimitation talks between Japan and the Philippines.
Japan-Ph maritime borders
The talks were aimed at establishing official borders of the two countries’ overlapping exclusive economic zones and continental shelves in the waters east of Taiwan Island.
Settling the boundary, according to the Japan Times, removes legal ambiguities, helps clarify jurisdiction for fishing vessels, and establishes a clear framework for bilateral political and military operations.
Two Chinese academicians dismissed the Japan-Philippines maritime delimitation talks as a politically motivated spectacle devoid of legal basis and crafted to advance geopolitical calculations.
The participants in the symposium called on China’s Coast Guard to conduct regular patrols, and the military to scale up countermeasures to raise deterrence, The Global Times reported.
New model of security
Amid the mounting tensions across the Taiwan Strait, Batanes represents a new model of security, one grounded not in militarization but in resilience-based deterrence, according to Mercado.
“[Batanes] is structurally exposed, not because it is a target, but because it lies in the path of potential conflict,” Mercado said in her paper.
China has threatened to seize control of Taiwan, which has become a focal point of international rivalry, with implications that extend far beyond its shores.
Mercado said airspace congestion, maritime disruptions, and information warfare could reach the shores of Batanes even without direct hostilities.
“The question, then, is not whether Batanes matters strategically, but how it should respond, and how small communities can contribute to regional peace through preparedness, governance, and social cohesion,” she said.
Critical components of deterrence
Classic deterrence theory, according to Mercado, emphasizes denial and punishment through military means, but recently scholars have been highlighting resilience, societal robustness and governance capacity as critical components of deterrence, particularly in gray-zone environments.
Resilience-based deterrence shifts the focus from defeating an adversary to denying coercive leverage by ensuring continuity of governance, public services and social order under pressure, she said.
Mercado said Batanes is no longer peripheral in the shifting landscape. “Together, Batanes and Taiwan illustrate a wider transformation: deterrence in the Indo-Pacific is no longer defined only by weapons and alliances, but by the capacity of societies to endure,” she said.
Despite rising tensions in the Taiwan Strait, Batanes remains lightly militarized, reflecting deliberate Philippine policy choices aimed at avoiding provocation while maintaining sovereign presence.
“Its value does not lie in heavy militarization or the forward deployment of force. Rather, its strategic importance rests in its role as a sentinel — an outpost of awareness, resilience, and sovereign presence,” Mercado said.
“From Batanes, movements through the Luzon Strait can be observed, monitored, and understood. It is a natural platform for maritime domain awareness, early warning, and transparency — functions that are stabilizing rather than provocative,” she said.
Batanes lies astride the main corridor for the People’s Liberation Army Navy transiting from the South China Sea into the Western Pacific.
Dual character
In her field interviews with provincial officials, security forces, civil society, church leaders, and the media, Mercado has found a high degree of social cohesion and local legitimacy, and acute logistical fragility in Batanes.
She said understanding the changing role of Batanes in Northern Luzon defense planning, requires recognizing its dual character as a province defined as much by its vulnerabilities as by its fortitude.
Geographically isolated at the country’s northernmost frontier, Batanes depends heavily on weather-sensitive air and sea transport.
“Supply breakdowns are not abstract risks but recurring realities. Infrastructure remains limited, with power and communication systems offering minimal redundancy, and emergency surge capacity constrained by both scale and availability,” Mercado observed.
“In the context of a contingency in the Taiwan Strait, these structural vulnerabilities could intensify significantly. Air traffic restrictions could disrupt already fragile flight links, while maritime exclusion zones might hinder fishing livelihoods and the movement of essential cargo,” she said.
Moreover, she added, information operations could sow panic among communities that rely on timely and accurate communication.
But despite these vulnerabilities, Batanes has enduring strengths grounded in its social fabric.
“Communities are tightly knit, guided by strong faith traditions, mutual aid, and a culture of joint responsibility. Local governance enjoys a high degree of legitimacy and responsiveness, strengthening trust between institutions and citizens,” Mercado pointed out.
“These qualities are not incidental; they are the product of generations adapting to environmental uncertainty and isolation,” she said.
According to Mercado, Batanes’ fragility and strength position the province as an effective case of resilience-based deterrence.
“Its structural shortcomings underscore the immediacy of preparedness, while its social cohesion provides a firm foundation for coordinated response and recovery,’’ she said.
Non-escalatory role
Mercado suggested that assimilating Batanes into Edca planning in Northern Luzon must be carefully calibrated, noting that Edca sites are designed not for permanent basing but to enhance interoperability, humanitarian assistance and disaster response and logistical aid support.
“In this system,” she said, “Batanes assumes a distinct and non-escalatory role: as a situational awareness outpost supporting maritime domain awareness; as a civil defense and continuity node rather than a combat platform; and as a potential humanitarian staging area under scenarios involving evacuation or disaster response.”
Mercado emphasized that any coordination with Edca-related initiatives must remain civilian-led.
“Security support should be embedded in ways that are measured and discreet, making sure that preparedness is strengthened without provoking escalation or undermining local trust,” she said.
“In this sense,” she asserted, “Batanes constitutes a model where civil resilience and critical relevance are not in tension but are mutually reinforcing—signaling that even at the geographic margins, communities can play a central role in national and regional peace.” CS
