Filpino President Rodrigo Duterte
Source: Wikimedia
The ebbs and flows of Philippine policy in the South China Sea marks the confluence of (perceived and objective) shifts in the domestic political calculations of the ruling elite faction, which dominates foreign policy decision-making, and the regional security environment, which is broadly shaped by great powers, namely the United States and China.
In open, democratic societies like the Philippines, which have an in-built system of checks and balances, there is obviously less insulation for the foreign policy decision-making process from public scrutiny. Thus, domestic political dynamics tend to exert even greater pressure on foreign policy formulation. In the Philippines, interference of external powers, legislative oversight and judicial review by co-equal branches of the government, and lobbying by influential business groups constantly shape and constrain the executive’s constitutional prerogative in shaping foreign policy. Recent historical evidence also shows that changes in the administrations tend to be accompanied by a perceptible shift in approaches to key foreign policy challenges, particularly the South China Sea disputes.
This has been most prominent in the 21st century under the past three administrations, from President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (2001-2010) and Benigno Aquino III (2010-2016) to Rodrigo Duterte (2016-2022). While the Arroyo administration broadly adopted an equilateral balancing strategy towards both powers and sought a pragmatic accommodation with China in the South China Sea, the Aquino administration largely adopted a counter-balancing strategy, soliciting maximum security assistance from America and other longstanding strategic partners like Japan to check China’s ambitions in the South China Sea.
The current president, Duterte, however, has raised the specter of bandwagoning with China and abandoning the Philippines’ long-standing alliance with America. “I will be chartering [sic] a [new] course [for the Philippines] on its own and will not be dependent on the United States,” the Philippines’ tough-talking leader declared immediately after securing electoral victory in May 2016, a particularly polarising and vicious contest that mirrored the American presidential elections as well as the British referendum on ending its European Union membership.
The Philippines has never had any president like Duterte, the first self-described ‘socialist’ as well as Mindanaoan top leader in the country’s history. And like none of the Southeast Asian nation’s presidents, he has lashed out at America and its supposed ‘interference’ with particular ideological conviction and rhetorical venom, including insults against American Ambassador Philip Goldberg and President Barack Obama.[1]
During the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) summit in Vientiane, Laos, he reminded America of its mass atrocities in the early-20th century and a radical shift in Philippine foreign policy by declaring: “I am ready to not really break ties [with America] but we will open alliances with China and . . . Medvedev [Russia],” the firebrand president exclaimed. “I will open up the Philippines for them to do business, alliances of trade and commerce.”[2] He also became the first Filipino leader to choose Beijing for his first major state visit, where he, to the consternation of many Filipinos and government officials, declared “separation” from America by offering to re-align his country’s foreign policy with Beijing’s “ideological flow”.[3]
Not to mention, at some point, Duterte stretched the limits of his bolt-from-the-blue rhetoric by even threatening to take the Philippines out of the United Nations over disagreements vis-à-vis human rights issues. On the surface, this represents nothing short of a revolution in Philippine foreign policy. And yet his approach revealed a more nuanced and less dramatic picture of justifiable strategic recalibration built on amateurish tactics and often-inappropriate rhetoric.
Understanding Philippine policy in the South China Sea cannot be confined to analysing domestic political shifts alone. More often than not, external factors have proven more decisive in shaping the mid-sized country’s foreign policy. After all, small powers are often at the mercy of greater forces, which shape the international environment. For instance, back in 2004, the Arroyo administration was in a strong position to improve ties with Beijing, precisely because the latter maintained a sober and tempered policy in the South China Sea. This was not the case from 2010 onwards, when China progressively stepped up its maritime assertiveness in adjacent waters, both in the East and South China Seas. More importantly, the United States, the world’s leading power, also experienced a shift in its strategic focus and resolve throughout this period. In short, the Philippines has operated in and has had to cope with a fluid external environment, which was primarily shaped by external powers.
Nevertheless, it is clear that strong-willed leaders such as Duterte can—and often do–exercise a surprising level of agency in re-shaping their respective country’s foreign policy, for better or worse. At this point, what is clear is that the Philippines is, at the very least, shifting to an equi-balancing strategy, whereby Manila seeks to maintain friendly relations with both America and China, but with certain game-changing modifications. Under an emerging ‘grand bargain’, the Philippines will maintain the fundamentals of bilateral security relations with America, but downgrade military cooperation in the South China Sea. In exchange, the Duterte administration expects China to step up its development aid and, more importantly, make concessions in the disputed waters, particularly over Filipino fishermen’s access to the bitterly disputed Scarborough Shoal. But nothing is set in stone. The trajectory of Philippine relations with both powers will depend on Duterte’s domestic political standing, relations with the incoming administration of Donald Trump, and the prospects of joint development schemes with China in the South China Sea.
Strategic Dependence
For much of the 20th century, Manila outsourced its external security requirements to Washington, which, in exchange, gained full-spectrum access to Philippine civilian and military facilities. In effect, the Philippines, a formally sovereign nation, became America’s protectorate. This patron-client strategic relationship was undergirded by a series of foundational agreements, particularly the US-Philippines Military Assistance Pact (1947), the Military Bases Agreement (1947), and the Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) of 1951, which transformed America into the de facto guarantor of the Philippines’ survival against external aggression.[4]
The end of Cold War, however, represented a shock to the bilateral relations. Absent a common enemy, namely the Soviet Union, America began to reconsider its exorbitant military deployments overseas, while the Philippines agitated for actual independence. The upshot was the exit of American bases in 1992, which came amidst the euphoria of economic globalisation in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of the Communist bloc. It did not take long, however, before Manila experienced a rude awakening, specifically when China extended its creeping occupation of contested land features in the South China Sea into the Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in 1994.
The following year, the two neighbours almost came to blows, as the Ramos administration (1992-1998) struggled to respond to the shock of what it saw as Chinese territorial usurpation. In response, Manila adopted a three-pronged approach. First, seeking the return of American military presence in the region under a Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), which coincided with the Clinton administration’s growing anxieties over a rising China in light of the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis. Second, Manila stepped up its military buildup under the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Modernization Act.[5] The aim was to develop at least a credible minimum defence posture, absent permanent American bases in the Philippines that served as a strong deterrence in the past. Finally, the Ramos administration adopted a pro-active multilateral diplomacy, particularly towards the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which culminated in the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea.[6]
The early years of the Arroyo administration were dominated by the Bush administration’s ‘Global War on Terror’, which was focused on both the Middle East and Southeast Asian regions. But by the mid-2000s, the Philippines began to step up its relations with China, which, under a charm offensive strategy, adopted a policy of moderation and self-restraint in the South China Sea. Arroyo’s September 2004 state visit to Beijing proved decisive, as it heralded a sudden uptick in bilateral security and economic cooperation. The same year, the two sides signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Defense Cooperation, with China offering $1.2 million in military assistance to the Philippines.[7] The two sides also took concrete steps to resolve their disputes in the South China Sea.
Under the Joint Maritime Seismic Undertaking (2005-2008), the two neighbours, together with Vietnam, explored a joint exploration scheme in specific areas of overlapping claims in the Spratlys. The hope was that this would serve as a concrete confidence-building measure as a prelude to more high-stakes joint development scheme in the South China Sea. In a characteristic exercise of its statecraft, China also offered massive infrastructure deals, particularly the NBN-ZTE telecommunications and the North Rail transpiration projects, to upgrade the Philippines’ lackadaisical economy. Over the next few years, bilateral trade boomed, increasing from $17.6 billion in 2005 to $23.4 in 2006 and $30.6 billion in 2007.[8]
But this ‘golden age’ of bilateral relations was short-lived, as corruption scandals undermined the Arroyo administration’s major investments deals with China and the JMSU came under attack for violating the Philippine Constitution. Against this backdrop, Aquino, who ran on the platform of fighting corruption, rose to presidency. Under these trying circumstances, inevitably there were to be tensions with China, which was embroiled in various corruption scandals under the previous administration.
The bone of contention was the South China Sea, specifically after Beijing began to effectively occupy the Scarborough Shoal following a tense naval standoff in mid-2012. In response, the Aquino administration filed an arbitration case against China, accusing the Asian giant of violating the Philippines’ sovereign rights in the South China Sea. It also stepped up the Philippines’ security cooperation with the Obama administration, which began its much-touted ‘Pivot to Asia’ policy in 2011. Meanwhile, institutionalised diplomatic and bilateral state-to-state investment relations were essentially frozen.[9]
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