America’s Erratic Philippine Ally

Duterte, world’s most erratic leader , kowtows to China on control of the South China Sea.
Th Wall Street JournalIn this Thursday, Oct. 20, 2016 photo, Duterte delivers a speech during the Philippines-China Trade and Investment Forum at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

With Hugo Chávez dead and Cristina Kirchner out of power, Rodrigo Duterte is bidding to become the world’s most erratic leader not in North Korea. 

Last week he continued his anti-American showboating on a trip that was a deep kowtow to China.
“Your honors, in this venue I announce my separation from the United States,” he said Thursday in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People. 

“So I will be dependent on you for all time,” adding that “America has lost now.”
Duterte piled on the anti-American animus. 

“No more American influence. No more American [military] exercises. It’s time to say goodbye, my friend.” 

China, by contrast, “has the character of an Oriental. It does not go around insulting people”—a reference to U.S. criticism of extrajudicial killings in the Philippines.
Back in the Philippines Friday night Duterte tried to walk back some of his comments, claiming they applied only to his foreign policy. 

But that would still seem to signal acquiescence to China’s trampling of Philippine rights in the South China Sea, such as harassing fishermen, blocking oil-exploration ships and conquering Scarborough Shoal, a fishing area 120 miles off the Philippine coast. 

Previous President Benigno Aquino took China to international arbitration and improved U.S. ties. Now Duterte could cede the vital waterway to Chinese control while signaling to Beijing (and Moscow and Tehran) that bullying works.
It’s possible that Duterte’s rhetoric outstrips what he’ll be able to pursue. 

Filipinos remain staunchly pro-American, with a recent Social Weather Stations survey finding 76% have “much trust” in the U.S., versus 22% for China. 

Filipinos know about Beijing’s South China Sea abuses, and they know that when Typhoon Haiyan struck in 2013 the U.S. sent an aircraft carrier and $20 million in aid while China initially chipped in $100,000.
The bilateral deals struck last week in Beijing were also modest, focused on trade, tourism and investment. 

The two sides agreed to open some coast-guard cooperation and establish a mechanism to discuss the South China Sea. 

But there were no announcements on marine resources or Scarborough Shoal.
Duterte has said he won’t abrogate the 1951 mutual-defense treaty, and he hasn’t moved against the 2014 deal that invited U.S. troops to rotate through Philippine bases. 

Even his promise to end joint military exercises with the U.S. came into question last week when Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana revealed that the Cabinet was never consulted and no final decision has been made. 

“It is still on,” he told Congress.
Still, Manila’s pivot from Washington has been dramatic enough that respected former President Fidel Ramos, who helped draft Duterte to seek the Presidency, blasted him this month as “a huge disappointment and let-down.” 

Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio has warned publicly that if a deal eventually materializes in which Duterte undermines Philippine sovereignty at Scarborough Shoal, “you can impeach him.”
Filipinos and their friends overseas must be prepared for worse. 

For the U.S. that means maintaining as many productive ties with Manila as possible and pressing the case for the alliance publicly and privately.
Duterte is an aberration, but his behavior shows the risks if the U.S. lets the foundations of a rules-based order in Asia deteriorate. 

The Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal represents the American vision of open markets and deepened economic ties, but support for ratification in the Congress is uncertain. 

Tight military budgets, the Obama Administration’s global retreat and Donald Trump’s rhetoric have all raised concerns about the U.S. commitment to Asia. 

Such doubts give populist politicians space to wreak havoc.

How Duterte Just Sold Out His Country to China

Duterte is severing ties to Washington, and ready to be dependent on Beijing—which won’t be criticizing his increasingly bloody rule.

By Kelly Caminero

MANILA — Ranking members of the Philippines government rushed into damage-control mode Friday as they sought to assure their citizens and the rest of the world that the country’s close relationship with the United States remains intact despite Duterte’s pronouncement that Manila is “separating” from Washington.
Yes, “separating.”
Since Duterte took office June 30, th Trumpian president has responded with anger, defiance, and obscenities to criticism of his campaign to slaughter suspected drug dealers and addicts across the country. 

Last month, he called Barack Obama a “son of whore”—prompting the White House to cancel a planned bilateral meeting between the two leaders.

This month, he told Obama “you can go to hell” and threatened to “break up with America.”
Now, it would seem, Duterte thinks he can make good on that threat by turning his country into a dependent satellite of Beijing. 

He shocked even his own administration when he said in a speech in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing: “In this venue, I announce my separation from the United States… both in military, but also economics.’’
Duterte drew cheers from stalwarts of the Chinese Communist Party when he said that in dumping America, “I will be dependent on you.”
On his state visit to Beijing, Duterte held discussions with Xi Jinping that ended in Xi offering the Philippines $9 billion in loan credits and Duterte agreeing to renew bilateral talks with Xi to resolve the long-festering dispute over maritime and fishing rights in the South China Sea.
The latter agreement is especially puzzling, considering a United Nations tribunal recently ruled in a long-fought case that Manila has de jure access in the sea.
The trip also has seen the two countries agree to $13.5 billion in trade deals.
Among those hastening to tamp down the reaction to Duterte’s remarks was the Philippines’ trade minister, Ramon Lopez, who told CNN that Manila will not “stop trade and investment with the U.S.,” and that the president had merely “decided to strengthen further and rekindle the ties with China” as well as with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), many of whose members are threatened by China.
Also in Manila, a Duterte spokeswoman attempted to minimize the force of Duterte’s words: “We would not like to interpret the pronouncements of the president,” said Maria Banaag, as if that were not, precisely, her job.
The comments from Lopez and Banaag sounded hollow in the face of Duterte’s unequivocal statements, including one in which he told Beijing business leaders that, “America has lost now. I’ve realigned myself in your ideological flow.”
As noted, Duterte pivoted to China, in fact, in retaliation for stern criticism from the United States and other Western countries over the bloody anti-drug campaign he launched as soon as he became president—part of an overarching battle against crime.
The U.S., the United Nations, the European Union, and others have condemned the campaign, which has included extrajudicial killings by police and has seen as many as 3,800 Filipinos, many of them poor residents of inner-city barrios, slain just since July 1.
Duterte critics noted that in addition to winning economic benefits from China, the president may be receiving assurance that Beijing will give him a free hand in the drug war.
The Chinese Communist regime itself has a poor human-rights record, has long insisted on a “non-interference” foreign policy—and is highly unlikely to pressure Duterte to observe such fundamental legal principles as probable cause or due process in his anti-drug war, nor demand an end to extrajudicial killings by the Philippines National Police.
“Obviously, the Chinese are not going to be perturbed by human-rights violations,” says a former U.S. diplomat and veteran of the Manila embassy.
In fact, Chinese officials have lauded Duterte’s drug crackdown. 

Some $15 million of the loan money Beijing has promised is to go to the campaign, although Philippine government officials have said the money will be spent on drug-rehabilitation projects.
Addressing Duterte’s latest salvo in Beijing, the U.S. embassy in Manila said Duterte’s remarks are “creating unnecessary uncertainty.”
“We’ve seen a lot of this sort of troubling rhetoric recently, which is inexplicably at odds with the warm relationship that exists between the Filipino and American people and the record of important cooperation between our two governments,” embassy spokeswoman Molly R. Koscina said in a statement.
Indeed, the United States is very popular among ordinary Filipinos. 

Many often express a strong affection for America, and say that they appreciate America’s role in liberating the country from the Japanese during World War II.
“I’m not sure about these drug killings.… A lot of Pinoys [Filipinos] like it because they feel safer, even though we all know people in our neighborhoods who are mistakenly killed,” tour driver Armando Pablo tells The Daily Beast. 

“But we are friends with America and we like Americans. I don’t know how far he [Duterte] will go.”
This Filipino president not only does not thank the United States for any wartime liberation, he suggests that the Japanese would not have bothered to attack the Philippines in the first place if the U.S. had not been in the country. 

It’s a bizarre claim given the archipelago’s strategic location and Japan’s drive to expand its empire in all directions in the 1930s and 1940s. 

But Duterte apparently felt comfortable making such a pronouncement in a contentious interview on Al Jazeera.
Duterte, the former mayor of the southern city of Davao, where he first introduced his take-no-prisoners approach to fighting against illegal drugs and where he was known as both “the Dirty Harry of Davao” and “the Punisher,” is famously impetuous and quick to be offended.
His outbursts have become ever more frequent, defiant—and vulgar. 

He has insisted that he doesn’t “give a shit” about outside opinion, and vowed to continue his drug offensive for another six months, regardless of criticism and despite the fact that the Philippines senate is investigating the extrajudicial killings.
In the past few months, the U.S. has played down Duterte’s insults and threats, hoping he eventually would curb the rhetoric and continue to pursue business, political, and economic cooperation. Washington has been particularly wary of Duterte’s promise to abandon the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, signed by previous president Benigno Aquino, that allows the U.S. to rotate ships, aircraft and personnel through five Philippine bases. 

The EDCA is considered critical to projecting American power in the Pacific, even as China becomes more powerful and bellicose.
With Duterte apparently in no mood to compromise—he’s even talking about making deals with Russia as well—it remains to be seen whether the his administration and the Filipino people can pull him away from the brink and keep Manila in the West’s embrace.

Duterte's flirting with Beijing is disaster for the US

Rodrigo Duterte claimed that a new alliance of the Philippines, China, and Russia would emerge: "There are three of us against the world." 

By Max Boot

Xi Jinping, right, with Duterte during a welcome ceremony outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

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 Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, who famously tried to realign China from being a foe of the United States to a friend — never mind that the Chinese leader they had to deal with was Mao Zedong, the worst mass murderer in history. 

"Nixinger" believed, correctly, that China's interest in countering Soviet power would lead it to draw closer with the United States.​
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 United States until Mao had 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 year. 

This crude populist is now transforming the Philippines' relationship with the United States in a fundamental and worrying manner.

The Philippines is America's oldest ally in Asia, and until recently one of the closest. 

The United States ruled the Philippines as a colonial power from 1899 to 1942 and implanted its culture in the archipelago. 

In World War II, U.S. and Filipino troops fought side by side against the Japanese occupiers. 

In 1951, Washington and Manila signed a mutual defense treaty. 

For decades afterward, the Philippines hosted two of the largest U.S. 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 U.S. military presence has been ramping up again as the Philippines felt increasingly threatened by Chinese military expansionism. 

In 2014, Barack Obama signed an agreement with then-President Benigno Aquino III that would allow U.S. 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 like a dead letter. 

Duterte journeyed to Beijing this 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 in trade deals; that's a pretty hefty signing bonus for switching sides. 

Duterte said he will soon end military cooperation with the United States, 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 United States. 

The fourth-largest is Singapore, another U.S. ally that is concerned about China's vast territorial ambitions and aggressive behavior. 

Taken together, the Philippines sends 42.7 percent of its exports to Japan, the United States, and Singapore, compared with only 10.5 percent to China and 11.9 percent to Hong Kong. 

The Philippines gets 16.1 percent of its imports from China; almost all of the rest comes from the United States 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 United States 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 United States and have been built in the image of the U.S. military; they have no experience working with China's People's Liberation Army. 

Moreover, and despite Duterte's nasty rhetoric and ad hominems, the United States continues to express its desire to protect the Philippines.

This massive geopolitical shift is entirely Duterte's doing. 

It cannot be explained any other way. 

It is a product of his peculiar psychology.
He has long been ideologically hostile to the United States — he has called Obama a "son of a whore" — and he feels an ideological affinity with China's authoritarian rulers. 

Although elected democratically, Duterte is a strongman in the making. 

He has already violated the rule of law to unleash death squads that are said to have killed at least 1,900 people, including a 5-year-old boy, in the name of fighting drugs. 

He has cited Hitler as his role model: "Hitler massacred 3 million Jews. Now, there is 3 million drug addicts. I'd be happy to slaughter them." 

He has also said "I don't give a shit" about human rights. 

China's rulers don't put their worldview quite so crassly, but they, too, don't care much for human rights. 

The Duterte-Xi Jinping marriage thus seems like a natural match.
Duterte's flip-flop — assuming it leads to a lasting strategic shift — is a potential disaster. 

Aligned with the United States 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 U.S. strategy since the Cold War. 

It now could be undone because of the whims of one unhinged leader.

China could either neutralize this vital American ally or even turn the Philippines into a PLA Navy base for menacing U.S. allies such as Taiwan, Japan, and Australia. 

At the very least, the U.S. 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 U.S. 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.

Duterte says U.S. has "lost"; aligns Philippines with China

By Ben Blanchard | BEIJING

Rodrigo Duterte announced his "separation" from the United States on Thursday, declaring he had realigned with China as the two agreed to resolve their South China Sea dispute through talks.
Duterte made his comments in Beijing, where he is visiting with at least 200 business people to pave the way for what he calls a new commercial alliance as relations with longtime ally Washington deteriorate.
"In this venue, your honours, in this venue, I announce my separation from the United States," Duterte told Chinese and Philippine business people, to applause, at a forum in the Great Hall of the People attended by Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli.
"Both in military, not maybe social, but economics also. America has lost."
Duterte's efforts to engage China, months after a tribunal in the Hague ruled that Beijing did not have historic rights to the South China Sea in a case brought by the previous administration in Manila, marks a reversal in foreign policy since the 71-year-old former mayor took office on June 30.
His trade secretary, Ramon Lopez, said $13.5 billion in deals would be signed during the China trip.
"I've realigned myself in your ideological flow and maybe I will also go to Russia to talk to President Vladimir Putin and tell him that there are three of us against the world -- China, Philippines and Russia. It's the only way," Duterte told his Beijing audience.
Duterte's remarks will prompt fresh concern in the United States, where the Obama administration has seen Manila as an important ally in its "rebalance" of resources to Asia in the face of a rising China.
The administration agreed a deal with Duterte's predecessor granting U.S. forces rotational access to bases in the Philippines and further doubts will be raised about the future of this arrangement.
In Washington, however, the White House stressed the traditional bonds between the United States and the Philippines in response to Duterte's comments and stuck to a U.S. approach of seeking to play down his repeated verbal attacks.
"The U.S.-Philippine alliance is built on a 70-year history, rich people to people ties and a long list of shared security concerns," White House spokesman Eric Schultz told reporters.

"We have not received any official requests from Filipino officials to alter any of our many issues where we bilaterally cooperate."
Schultz said the White House does not view Manila's relationship with China as a "zero sum game."
"We believe that it's in our national security interests when our partners and allies in the region have strong relationships with China," he said.
A few hours after Duterte's speech, his top economic policymakers released a statement saying that, while Asian economic integration was "long overdue", that did not mean the Philippines was turning its back on the West.
"We will maintain relations with the West but we desire stronger integration with our neighbours," said Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez and Economic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia in a joint statement. 

"We share the culture and a better understanding with our region."

RED CARPET WELCOME
China has pulled out all the stops to welcome Duterte, including a marching band complete with baton-twirling band master at his official greeting ceremony outside the Great Hall of the People, which is not extended to most leaders.
Xi Jinping, meeting Duterte earlier in the day, called the visit a "milestone" in ties.
Xi told Duterte that China and the Philippines were brothers and they could "appropriately handle disputes", though he did not mention the South China Sea in remarks made in front of reporters.
"I hope we can follow the wishes of the people and use this visit as an opportunity to push China-Philippines relations back on a friendly footing and fully improve things," Xi said.
Following their meeting, during which Duterte said relations with China had entered a new "springtime", Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin said the South China Sea issue was not the sum total of relations.
"The two sides agreed that they will do what they agreed five years ago, that is to pursue bilateral dialogue and consultation in seeking a proper settlement of the South China Sea issue," Liu said.
China claims most of the energy-rich South China Sea through which about $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year. 

Neighbours Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims.
In 2012, China seized the disputed Scarborough Shoal and denied Philippine fishermen access to its fishing grounds.
Liu said the shoal was not mentioned and he did not answer a question about whether Philippine fishermen would be allowed there. 

He said both countries had agreed on coastguard and fisheries cooperation, but did not give details.

SEA DISPUTE TAKES 'BACK SEAT'
Duterte's tone towards Beijing is in stark contrast to the language he has used against the United States, after being infuriated by U.S. criticism of his bloody war on drugs.
He has called Barack Obama a "son of a bitch" and told his to "go to hell", while alluding to severing ties with the old colonial power.
On Wednesday, to the cheers of hundreds of Filipinos in Beijing, Duterte said Philippine foreign policy was veering towards China.
"I will not go to America anymore. We will just be insulted there," Duterte said. 

"So time to say goodbye my friend."
The same day, about 1,000 anti-U.S. protesters gathered outside the U.S. embassy in Manila calling for the removal of U.S. troops from the southern island of Mindanao.
Duterte's abrupt pivot from Washington to Beijing is unlikely to be universally popular at home, however. 

On Tuesday an opinion poll showed Filipinos still trust the United States far more than China.
Duterte on Wednesday said the South China Sea arbitration case would "take the back seat" during talks, and that he would wait for the Chinese to bring up the issue rather than doing so himself.
Xi said issues that could not be immediately be resolved should be set aside, according to the Chinese foreign ministry.
China has welcomed the Philippines approaches, even as Duterte has vowed not to surrender any sovereignty to Beijing, which views the South China Sea Hague ruling as null and void.
China has also expressed support for his drug war, which has raised concern in Western capitals about extrajudicial killing.