Duterte’s Fling With China Could Prove Fleeting

Beijing will soon discover that Manila’s affections can be fickle.
By ANDREW BROWNE

Xi Jinping welcomes the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte to Beijing last week. 

The macho, gun-toting, womanizing politician is a Philippine archetype; Rodrigo Duterte inherits a rich tradition.
His tirades against America fit into resentment that has long been a staple of Philippine politics. 

The former dictator Ferdinand Marcos often spouted anti-U.S. rhetoric, and even threatened to play the Soviet card against his Cold War U.S. ally from time to time to try to extract more military aid and economic benefits.
Duterte seems to be employing similar tactics, although rather more clumsily, by last week announcing his “separation” from America to join China and Russia. 

He has since rowed back those comments.
His desire for economic cooperation with China has deeper roots. 

Commercial links between the close neighbors are even older than the Spanish galleon trade when the Philippines became the transshipment point for huge flows of silver bullion from Latin America to China. 

As for cultural ties, the Philippine elites are mainly of mixed Chinese ancestry. 

Duterte himself claims Chinese blood.
But Washington is now stuck. 

It constructed an entire geopolitical strategy—the rebalancing to Asia, designed to counter China’s growing military power and influence—around a country with conflicting attitudes toward the U.S.
The “pivot” was President Obama’s signature foreign-policy initiative; Manila was the fulcrum.
Chinese bullying of smaller Southeast Asian countries, the Philippines in particular, was the justification for the policy. 

When Chinese coastguard vessels grabbed the Scarborough Shoal in 2012—China’s only act of outright territorial aggression in the South China Sea in recent years—the “pivot” found its cause célèbre. 

Former Philippine President Benigno Aquino III used the seizure to launch a legal case against China’s claims to the South China Sea in The Hague. 

Victory added legal strength to the “pivot’s” military muscle.
Now, as Mr. Obama prepares to leave office, the “pivot” is teetering. 

Failure to drive through Congress an ambitious regional trade deal he has advocated—the Trans-Pacific Partnership—could further throw it off.
Still, even if American prestige has taken a hit and China has scored a tactical success, the East Asia geopolitical battle is far from over. 

The modern Philippines was forged in independence struggles, first against the Spanish friars and their vast estates, then Americans who subdued the country with brutal force and later seduced it with their popular culture. 

The old joke in Manila is that Filipinos endured three centuries living in a Spanish convent and five decades in Hollywood. 

Don’t imagine they want to move in with China now, regardless of Duterte’s apparent change of direction.
Beijing will discover soon enough that Filipino political affections can be fickle. 

To court Manila is to invite rejection; its emotional brand of nationalism is capable of overriding economic, security and just about all other considerations.
Americans should know this better than anybody. 

Back in the early 1990s, the Philippines tossed the U.S. military out of Clark Air Base and Subic Bay Naval Base, once the largest American fleet harbor overseas. 

The facilities were the country’s second-largest employer and pumped $1 billion a year into the economy, and the forced U.S. withdrawal left the country virtually defenseless.
China has had its share of setbacks in the Philippines, too. 

During the administration of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who preceded Mr. Aquino, Beijing dangled large sums of aid—$2 billion of loans each year for three years—along with infrastructure deals that included a railway link.

In return, Manila agreed to joint energy exploration in disputed waters in the South China Sea.
All of this fell apart in a mess of corruption scandals involving pro-China politicians and their business cronies.
Duterte’s rise to the presidency from his political base in the southern city of Davao—part of a wild hinterland long plagued by a Muslim insurgency—was a surprise.

His flip-flop from America to China was not. 

The fiery populist made no secret of his hatred of the U.S.
Washington’s strategy seems to be to stay calm in the face of Duterte’s provocations, say as little as possible and hope he goes away.
It is not such a fanciful wish. 

Duterte has made himself popular with a vicious crackdown on drugs that features death squads. 

Mr. Marcos was similarly buoyed by a brutal law-and-order drive, before the country turned on him. Extrajudicial killings then were known as “salvaging.” 

Another of Duterte’s predecessors, the equally colorful Joseph Estrada—famous for conducting cabinet meetings in his smoke-filled nightclub—was swiftly brought down on corruption allegations as his popular appeal waned.
What’s more, the country has a feisty media, independent judges and elites as uncomfortable with Duterte as their counterparts in America are with Donald Trump. 

There’s still plenty of love for Uncle Sam among ordinary Filipinos. 

China places its bets on Mr. Duterte at its peril.