International relations theorists of a “realist” persuasion like to claim that states are rational actors pursuing their strategic interests in an anarchic world where power alone matters. Ideology and domestic politics do not much concern these thinkers; they believe that a nation’s foreign policy is much more likely to be shaped by factors such as geography, demography and economics.
This was the viewpoint of former United States president Richard Nixon and former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger, who famously tried to realign China from being a foe of the US to a friend. “Nixinger” believed, correctly, that China’s interest in countering Soviet power would lead it to draw closer with the US.
But even in the case of China, the applicability of realist insights was limited. China did not begin the transformation that would make it a leading economic force and trade partner of the US until Mao Zedong died, replaced by the reformist Deng Xiaoping. Even today, China is more foe than friend of America.
Today, the Philippines is Exhibit A in illustrating the limits of the realist conceit that some unvarying strategic logic governs foreign policy. The Philippines has seen a vertigo-inducing change in its foreign-policy orientation since Rodrigo Duterte became President this summer. This crude populist is now transforming the Philippines’ relationship with the US in a fundamental and worrying manner.
The Philippines is America’s oldest ally in Asia, and until recently one of the closest. The US ruled the Philippines as a colonial power from 1899 to 1942 and implanted its culture in the archipelago. In the Second World War, US and Filipino troops fought side by side against the Japanese occupiers. In 1951, Washington and Manila signed a mutual defence treaty. For decades afterward, the Philippines hosted two of the largest US military installations overseas at Clark Air Force Base and Subic Bay Naval Base. Those bases were closed in 1991 amid a wave of anti-Americanism, but the US military presence has been ramping up again as the Philippines felt increasingly threatened by Chinese military expansionism. In 2014, US President Barack Obama signed an agreement with then-President Benigno Aquino III that would allow US forces more regular access to bases in the Philippines and increase the tempo of training exercises and military cooperation between the two countries. Now that achievement looks increasingly like a dead letter.
‘Three against the world’
Duterte journeyed to Beijing last week to announce his “separation from the United States” in military and economic terms. “America has lost,” Duterte said. He claimed that a new alliance of the Philippines, China, and Russia would emerge — “there are three of us against the world.” His trade secretary said the Philippines and China were inking $13 billion (Dh47.81 billion) in trade deals; that’s a pretty hefty signing bonus for switching sides. Duterte said he will soon end military cooperation with the US, despite the opposition of his armed forces.
What could account for this head-snapping transformation? Manila’s strategic and economic interests have not changed. While China is the Philippines’ second-largest trade partner, its largest is Japan, a close American ally and a foe of Chinese expansionism. The third-largest trade partner is the US. The fourth-largest is Singapore, another US ally that is concerned about China’s vast territorial ambitions and aggressive behaviour. Taken together, the Philippines sends 42.7 per cent of its exports to Japan, the US and Singapore, compared with only 10.5 per cent to China and 11.9 per cent to Hong Kong. The Philippines gets 16.1 per cent of its imports from China. Almost all of the rest comes from the US and its allies, including Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea. So it’s not as if there is an especially pressing economic case for the Philippines to realign from the US to China.
There is a pressing strategic case, however, not to do so. China continues to assert sovereignty in the South China Sea in violation of Philippine claims, as an international court ruled in July in a case brought by Duterte’s predecessor. China wants to grab for itself what could be billions of dollars’ worth of natural resources, from fish to oil, in the South China Sea.
Moreover, the Philippine people remain largely pro-American. English is the lingua franca of the Philippines. The Armed Forces of the Philippines have many decades of cooperation with the US and have been built in the image of the US military; they have no experience working with China’s People’s Liberation Army. More-over, and despite Duterte’s nasty rhetoric and ad hominems, the US continues to express its desire to protect the Philippines.
A vital platform
This massive geopolitical shift is entirely Duterte’s doing. It cannot be explained any other way. It is a product of his peculiar psychology.
From the American viewpoint, Duterte’s flip-flop — assuming it leads to a lasting strategic shift — is a potential disaster. Aligned with the US and its regional allies, the Philippines can provide a vital platform to oppose Chinese aggression in the South China and East China seas.
If the Philippines becomes a Chinese satrapy, by contrast, Washington will find itself hard-pressed to hold the “first island chain” in the Western Pacific that encompasses “the Japanese archipelago, the Ryukyus, Taiwan and the Philippine archipelago”. Defending that line of island barriers has been a linchpin of US strategy since the Cold War. It now could be undone because of the whims of the Philippines president.
China could either neutralise this vital American ally or even potentially turn the Philippines into a Peoples Liberation Army Navy base for menacing US allies such as Taiwan, Japan and Australia. At the very least, the US Navy will find it much harder to protect the most important sea lanes in the world; each year $5.3 trillion in goods passes through the South China Sea, including $1.2 trillion in US trade.
The opposition is already making hay over Duterte’s China trip. A Supreme Court justice in Manila has warned the president that, were he to give up sovereignty over the Scarborough Shoal, it could result in his impeachment. The only good news from the American standpoint is that what Duterte is doing could be undone by a more rational successor, assuming that democracy in the Philippines survives this time of testing.
— Washington Post
Max Boot is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
