An interesting drama currently playing out in the seas northwest of the Philippines should put the recent passage of the law defining this country?s territorial baselines in its proper geopolitical context. At the very least, the heightening of tensions between Washington and Beijing in the South China Sea would make us realize that there are much bigger forces involved in the dispute over the important sea lanes and potentially resource-rich islands west of Palawan.

The US has dispatched a naval destroyer, the Pearl Harbor-based USS Chung-Hoon, to escort unarmed Navy surveillance vessels that Washington claims are being harassed by Chinese boats and aircraft in the waters off Hainan Island on the southern coast of China. The Chinese have vehemently protested the deployment of the fully armed gunship and have accused the US vessels of encroaching on their territorial waters and of spying.

President Obama announced that he has approved the deployment of the Chung-Hoon, whose mission is to escort the unarmed naval surveillance ship USS Impeccable, which was recently in the news after its crew claimed that it was surrounded at sea by five Chinese boats, including three military vessels. US military sources have told American media outlets like MSNBC that, while unarmed, the Impeccable was towing a sonar buoy that was being used to track Chinese submarines operating out of Hainan, where Beijing operates a growing nuclear-sub base.

No shots were fired in that encounter, although the crew of the Impeccable said that it trained high-pressure water hoses on the Chinese vessels, which backed off after some tense moments. Afterwards, the Chinese were reported to have deployed an armed vessel of their own in the area, although Beijing?s Embassy in Manila was quick to point out that the ship was not a full-size gunship but merely a patrol vessel.

According to MSNBC?s Deep Background investigative blog, the incident involving the Impeccable two Sundays ago was only the latest in a series of provocative maneuvers by Chinese ships and planes aimed at two US Navy surveillance ships currently in the South China Sea. On March 7, a Chinese intelligence collection ship made a direct bridge-to-bridge radio call to the Impeccable, calling its operations illegal and telling its crew to leave the area or ?suffer the consequences.?

On March 5, a Chinese frigate approached the Impeccable, crossing its bow within about 100 yards. About two hours later, a Chinese Y-12 aircraft conducted 11 fly-bys over the US ship at a low altitude of about 600 yards.

And on March 4, a Chinese Bureau of Fisheries patrol vessel used a high-intensity spotlight to harass the USNS Victorious, an ocean surveillance ship, shining it on the ship and crew as it was operating about 125 nautical miles off the coast of China. The ship then crossed the Victorious? bow in darkness without warning, after which a Chinese Y-12 surveillance aircraft conducted 12 fly-bys at an altitude of about 400 feet.

In all these incidents, US military officials insist that their surveillance vessels were operating well beyond the internationally-accepted 12-mile coastal boundary of China and did not encroach on that country?s territorial waters. But since China has been claiming nearly all of the South China Sea as part of its territory and exclusive economic zone (which is why it disputes Manila?s historic claims to the Spratlys), it maintains that the US vessels have been entering its waters illegally.

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While the new Obama administration is attempting to cozy up diplomatically to Beijing (whose foreign minister was meeting the American president in the US while the South China Sea staredown was going on), other observers believe that hawks in the Washington military establishment are trying to test the limits of China?s patience by stoking the flames of conflict in the region. Others say that it is the Chinese who are goading Obama into reacting by initiating the near-encounters, something that Beijing also did the last time the Americans had a new president.

In April 2001, mere months after George W. Bush was sworn into office, a US Navy P-3 plane was on a similar submarine surveillance mission over the South China Sea when it collided with a Russian-made Chinese MIG fighter jet and was forced to make an emergency landing on Hainan. The Chinese MIG crashed into the sea and the pilot was killed.

The Chinese detained the 24 US Navy crew members of the P-3 for a tense 11 days before releasing them, but refused to allow the US to repair and fly the P-3 off the island. The airplane was instead dismantled by the Chinese and returned in pieces to the US, where it was reassembled and returned to service.

For us in the Philippines, which is embroiled in its own dispute with China over the new baselines law, the tension in the high seas off our coastline should make us realize how important it is to protect our territorial integrity and historic claims in these important waters. Of course, given the laughable condition of our own navy, we cannot get involved in any confrontation with China over the disputed Spratlys and the Kalayaan Island Group.

But we must resist the urge to simply lie down and let the Chinese bully us out of our claims to these areas, which the new law now merely considers ?a regime of islands under the Republic of the Philippines? instead of an integral part of our territory. Because we lack the naval muscle, we must appeal to international and regional groups like the United Nations and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to help us stake our claims.

It was the UN, after all, which got us into this situation by asking us to comply with a deadline for the determination of our baselines as a signatory to the Convention on the Law of the Sea. Asean, on the other hand, has signed a declaration with China in 2002 calling for the use of peaceful, diplomatic means in the resolution of territorial disputes in the South China Sea, which also involves Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.

It?s true that ants shouldn?t get involved when elephants fight. But even ants have rights, and they definitely need protection from rampaging elephants.