Philippines’s pivoting to China

Keeping afloat in rising Asia

Geo-strategic changes have been taking place in the South China Sea. A powerful message from the Philippines and Myanmar has gone to the United States and Japan within the past couple of months. The Philippines wants to promote more independent and assertive foreign policy. The country wants to improve and balance its ties with all powers to protect the interests of the Philippines.

A tilt toward the influential powers has slaughtered Manila interests in the past. A balanced approach is in the making. The Philippines will rewrite its security and foreign policy. The country may divert to China and Russia for buying military weapons and equipment. The Philippines will halt its joint patrolling in the South China Sea with the United States and other countries. Most of these joint patrols are directed against China under U.S. pivot.

Under Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD-led Government in Myanmar calibrated its policy toward China. She paid here first visit to Beijing in August in a bit to revive Myanmar’s ties with that country. Together with the President of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte’s initiative, these are positive developments in the region of East Asia for promoting peace and development.

Furthermore, under China’s One Belt One Road and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, the Philippines and Myanmar are important pillars to promote trade connectivity in the Indian Ocean and South China Sea.  Asian oneness would dilute the U.S. hegemony in the region. If all claimant States in South China Sea negotiate with China, issues are most likely to be resolved.

China’s ties with the Philippines are on the normalisation course after hitting for many years. Duterte has a developed policy to warm up his country’s ties with China. His policy sends pessimist message to Washington and optimistic joy to Beijing. Amidst at issues at the South China Sea and backing by Washington and Tokyo and at a time when the international arbitration court also passed judgement in favour of the Philippines, this is a great relief for Beijing to mutually sort out all issues with Manila. Duterte’s policy suits to achieve this objective. This is also a setback to U.S. pivot to Asia-Pacific.

Duterte would revaluate the presence of U.S. troops in the southern island of Mindanao, where they have spent more than a decade supporting offensives against Islamist separatists, giving a jerk to U.S pivot policy to enhance its military presence in the region. The U.S, policy-makers appeared to be more defensive in order to maintain the status quo of the mutual defence relations. This announcement greatly upset the U.S. policy-makers and they strongly dwelt on that reminding the Philippines to be to abide by the mutual defence commitments.

Detente’s policy is a setback to Japan as well. Japan was toeing its anti-China policy with help of the Philippines although there are historical differences between Japan and the Philippines. Both China and the Philippines were victims of Japanese aggression during wars. This commonality of view could stand-up both China and the Philippines together and also against the rising hegemony of the United States under the pivot policy.

Washington and Tokyo share the same goals against Manila but the latter would prefer to adopt a different approach in dealing with the situation as explained by a Japanese foreign ministry official. While physically present in the region, Japan might suffer more than its ally if the situation further escalates in the South and East China Sea. The Diaoyu/Senkaku island is considered to be a disputed territory between China and Japan and the situation is much escalated in the past six years.

China is Philippines’s major trading partner. Bilateral trade between china and the Philippines was recorded US$ 17.6 billion with US$ 11.4 billion imports from China and US$ 6.1 billion exports to China as recorded in 2015. China has offered US$ 1.2 billion development assistance to the Philippines during 2002-2013. In order to solve the island row between the two countries, the Philippines want to maintain fisheries rights in the dispute waters.

If the strain on their bilateral relations was removed, economic relations would further boost and bilateral trade would be tripled in a few years, as explained by the Philippines Trade Secretary, Ramon Lopez.

When Duterte visited Beijing on 25 October, China offered investment financial agreements worth US$ 24 billion, of which $15 billion are investment projects and $9 billion credit facilities to the Philippines.

Asian solidarity and oneness is necessary to promote development and prosperity across the Asian continent. The present China-Philippines move is breakthrough in this direction.