Run For Your Life

Countries evacuating nationals from Chinese coronavirus areas
Reuters

A growing number of countries around the world are evacuating or planning to evacuate diplomatic staff and citizens from parts of China hit by the new coronavirus.

Following are some countries’ evacuation plans, and how they aim to manage the health risk from those who are returning.
- Kazakhstan, which has previously evacuated 83 from Wuhan, will send two planes to China on Feb. 10 and Feb. 12 to evacuate its citizens. Out of 719 Kazakhs remaining in China, 391 have asked to be repatriated.
- A second evacuation flight is bringing back another 174 Singaporeans and their family members from Wuhan to the city-state on Feb. 9, Singapore’s foreign ministry said.
- Thirty Filipinos returned to the Philippines on Feb. 9 from Wuhan, the Department of Foreign Affairs said. The returning passengers and a 10-member government team will be quarantined for 14 days.
- Britain’s final evacuation flight from Wuhan, carrying more than 200 people, landed at a Royal Air Force base in central England on Feb. 9. A plane carrying 83 British and 27 European Union nationals from Wuhan landed in Britain last week.
- The 34 Brazilians evacuated from Wuhan landed in Brazil on Feb. 9, where they will begin 18 days of quarantine.
- Two planes with about 300 passengers, mostly U.S. citizens, took off from Wuhan on Feb. 6 bound for the United States -- the third group of evacuees from the heart of the coronavirus outbreak, the U.S. State Department said.
- Uzbekistan has evacuated 251 people from China and quarantined them on arrival in Tashkent, the Central Asian nation’s state airline said on Feb. 6.
- A plane load of New Zealanders, Australians and Pacific Islanders evacuated from Wuhan arrived in Auckland, New Zealand on Feb. 5, officials said.
- Taiwan has evacuated the first batch of an estimated 500 Taiwanese stranded in Wuhan.
- Italy flew back 56 nationals from Wuhan to Rome on Feb. 3. The group will spend two weeks in quarantine in a military hospital, the government said.
- Saudi Arabia has evacuated 10 students from Wuhan, Saudi state television reported on Feb. 2.
- Indonesia’s government flew 243 Indonesians from Hubei on Feb. 2 and placed them under quarantine at a military base on an island northwest of Borneo.
- South Korea flew 368 people home on a charter flight that arrived on Jan. 31. A second chartered flight departed Seoul for Wuhan on Jan. 31, with plans to evacuate around 350 more South Korean citizens.
- Japan chartered a third flight to repatriate Japanese people, which arrived from Wuhan on Jan. 31, bringing the number of repatriated nationals to 565.
- Spain’s government is working with China and the European Union to repatriate its nationals.
- Canada evacuated its first group of 176 citizens from Wuhan to an Ontario air force base early on Feb. 5, according to the Globe and Mail newspaper. The country’s foreign minister said a second group should arrive later on Feb. 5 after changing planes in Vancouver. All evacuees will be quarantined on the base for two weeks.
- Russia said it would begin moving its citizens out of China via its Far Eastern region on Feb. 1, regional authorities said. It plans to evacuate more than 600 Russian citizens currently in Hubei, Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova said. A first Russian military plane took off on Feb. 4 to evacuate Russian citizens from Wuhan, the RIA news agency reported.
- The Netherlands is preparing the voluntary evacuation of 20 Dutch nationals and their families from Hubei, Foreign Minister Stef Blok said. The Netherlands is finalising arrangements with EU partners and Chinese authorities.
- France has evacuated some nationals from Wuhan and said it would place the passengers in quarantine. It said it would first evacuate nationals without symptoms and then those showing symptoms at a later, unspecified date.
- Swiss authorities said they hope to have about 10 citizens join the French evacuation of nationals from China.
- A plane brought 138 Thai nationals home from Wuhan last week. They will spend two weeks in quarantine.

Greedy America: Hollywood Is Paying an ‘Abominable’ Price for China Access

A kid’s movie has turned into a geopolitical nightmare for DreamWorks.
BY BETHANY ALLEN-EBRAHIMIAN 

A scene from "Abominable" taken in a theater and shared by Vietnamese media. 

Hollywood’s China reckoning has come. 

But unlike the NBA’s recent China debacle, this time it’s not the United States but China’s nearest neighbors who’ve had enough.
Vietnam, the Philippines, and Malaysia have all expressed outrage at a map of China that flickers across the screen in a new film released in late September. 

The animated film, Abominable, is a joint production of DreamWorks and Pearl Studios, which is based in Shanghai. 

The map includes China’s infamous “nine-dash line”—the vague, ambiguously marked demarcation line for its territorial claim over most of the Vietnam East Sea.
The dispute points to a new problem for Hollywood as studios move closer to Beijing’s positions. Silence on China is nothing new—but positively pushing the Chinese government’s view of the world is.
Hollywood’s traditional self-censorship on China has market roots. 

China’s burgeoning market of movie-goers is expected to soon surpass the United States as the largest in the world. 

China’s censors have wielded this power adroitly, mandating that production companies abide by the party’s bottom lines in order to earn one of the 34 coveted spots allotted to foreign films for distribution in China each year. 

That has resulted in a deafening silence from Hollywood on the realities of Chinese Communist Party rule.
In the 1990s, several Hollywood films depicted oppression in Tibet, such as Seven Years in Tibet and Red Corner, and the Tibetan cause was popular among celebrities, most notably Richard Gere. 

But there hasn’t been a major film sympathetic towards Tibet since Disney’s 1997 film Kundun, for which Disney CEO Michael Eisner flew to Beijing to apologize to the Chinese leadership. 

Gere claims he has been frozen out of major films for his Tibet activism. 

The 2013 zombie movie World War Z altered the location of the origin of the zombie outbreak from China to North Korea. 

The 2016 film Doctor Strange changed the “Ancient One,” a Tibetan character in the original comic book series, to a white character played by Tilda Swinton. 

In the past decade, no major film has portrayed China as a military foe of the United States.
Omitting offending plot lines and characters was once enough to satisfy Chinese censors. 

But pressure has grown to include proactively positive depictions, particularly of Chinese science and military capabilities.
O. In the 2014 film Transformers: Age of Extinction, the Chinese military swoops in to save the day. One film critic described Age of Extinction as “a very patriotic film. It’s just Chinese patriotism on the screen, not American.” 

The payoff was enormous; Age of Extinction became the highest-grossing film of all time in China, raking in more than $300 million. (It no longer holds that record.) 

China saved the day again in The Martian, the 2015 science fiction film starring Matt Damon. 

NASA launches a special rocket carrying food for an astronaut stranded alone on Mars, but it explodes and NASA is out of options—until China’s space agency jumps into the plot out of nowhere, announcing it also has a special rocket it is willing to lend the Americans. (In fairness, the subplot was present in the original novel, not just introduced by the studio.) 

The Martian brought in $95 million at the Chinese box office.
The growing phenomenon of U.S.-China joint movie productions has also resulted in a proliferation of mediocre films that cast China in a conspicuously positive light. 

The 2018 B-grade shark flick The Meg, co-starring Chinese actor Li Bingbing, was one such coproduction. 

It features an American billionaire who finances a futuristic ocean research station located, in a narrative non sequitur, off the coast of China, run by brilliant and heroic Chinese protagonists.
Abominable appears to be another. 

It features a young Chinese girl who discovers a yeti on her roof. 

She decides to help the yeti find his way back home to the snowy mountains in the west, and they set off on a trek across China. 

It has gotten middling reviews: One critic wrote that the film is “so distinctive pictorially, and so manifestly good-hearted, that it’s easy to forgive if not quite forget the ragged quality of its storyline.”
But the Chinese government’s heavy-handed film regulation department seems to have gone a bridge too far. 

One scene in the movie includes a map of China on the young female protagonist’s wall. 

Nine slim dashes trace a U-shape around the Vietnam East Sea, a resource-rich body of water with numerous land features also claimed by the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Taiwan, and Brunei.
China is the only country that recognizes this fallacious map. 

The nine-dash line has no basis in international law, which does not recognize any country’s sovereignty over open waters. 

In 2016, an international tribunal in the Hague also rejected China’s assertions of sovereignty over the Vietnam East Sea. 

Beijing has never clarified the line’s legal definition or even its precise location, likely because to do so would open its vague claims up to further legal challenge.
These issues will come into sharper focus as Beijing begins to demand positive submission, not just omission. 

China’s domestic film market has already shifted from censorship to forced inclusion of propaganda. 

Last year, as part of a sweeping reorganization that saw many Chinese Communist Party bureaus absorb the purview of government departments, the party’s propaganda office took over regulation of the film industry. 

The result has been even more heavy-handed censorship and more overtly patriotic content in films. Over the summer, six anticipated blockbusters were axed entirely, and China’s box office slumped.

As Duterte Aligns Philippines with China, a U.S. Carrier Makes a Point in Manila

By Jason Gutierrez

The aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan in Manila Bay on Wednesday.

MANILA — Amid concerns in the Philippines about the future of its military alliance with the United States, the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan moored off Manila this week to show support for an ally locked in a territorial dispute with China.
The visit comes shortly after Rodrigo Duterte told the Philippine Congress that he couldn’t do anything to ward off China’s claims in the South China Sea and would rather negotiate with Beijing than risk a potentially disastrous war.
The aircraft carrier was meant to send a different message: that the Philippines could rely on the naval might of the United States, its military ally for decades. 

To drive home the point, local journalists were invited to tour the Ronald Reagan on Wednesday.
The carrier “is very capable and ready to respond to a wide range of operations, whether they be crisis or whether they be a humanitarian disaster response,” said Rear Admiral Karl Thomas, the commander of Task Force 70, which includes the Ronald Reagan.
The carrier’s call in Manila Bay came after it sailed through waters claimed by China. 

Earlier this week, Mike Esper, the new American defense secretary, accused China of “destabilizing behavior” for its aggressive moves in the South China Sea.
In remarks made in Australia, Mr. Esper said that the Indo-Pacific region, as the Trump administration calls it, was open to free naval passage for everyone, and that his government’s “national defense strategy makes this our priority theater.”
Admiral Thomas refrained from commenting directly on Mr. Esper’s statement, but he emphasized the carrier’s mission to cruise the seas and provide a counterbalance to China.
“The beauty of this aircraft carrier is that it provides a lot of security and stability to this region,” he said. 

“It allows us to go out there and set an environment where these kinds of disputes can be solved in a peaceful manner.”
Duterte has been facing demands by opposition politicians for a stronger stand against China since the sinking in June of a Philippine boat by a larger Chinese trawler, in waters claimed by both countries. 

Duterte characterized the sinking as a “maritime incident” rather than harassment.
His gradual embrace of China has helped win his country billions in dollars in investment pledges from Beijing. 

Later this month, he is expected to make another trip to China — his fifth since becoming president three years ago.
But analysts say Duterte’s approach may threaten its ties to a dependable ally. 

In recent years, the American military has helped beat back rebels who took over the southern Philippine city of Marawi in 2017 and provided crucial humanitarian relief after the devastation of Super Typhoon Haiyan in 2013.
The Ronald Reagan’s visit “sends a very powerful message to countries in the region that not only is the United States here to stay, but it has in the arsenal of its military assets that are far superior to what any nation in the region has,” said Jose Antonio Custodio, a political analyst and military historian at the Institute of Policy, Strategy and Development Studies, a Philippine think tank. 

“It is indeed a show of force.”
While China can intimidate the Philippines and its smaller regional neighbors with the sheer size of its naval force, it does not have aircraft carriers that can compete with the United States Navy’s.
“China is outclassed and outgunned and will be outfought by the U.S. and its allies in any hypothetical naval encounter,” Mr. Custodio said. 

He said China was “bluffing” in the South China Sea and that it was “only Duterte who is swallowing the Chinese lie hook, line and sinker.”
Chief Petty Officer Rommel Langomez, who serves aboard the Ronald Reagan and traces his roots to suburban Pasay city in Manila, said the carrier’s mission was to protect the “small fish that can easily be bullied,” namely the Philippines and other nations that have territorial disputes with China.
“It is also painful to see that our countrymen are being treated this way,” he said.

Chinese Aggressions

Philippines Accuses Chinese Vessel of Sinking Fishing Boat in Disputed Waters
By Jason Gutierrez

Protesters marched in Manila on Wednesday to denounce Chinese actions in the South China Sea.

MANILA — The Philippines on Wednesday accused a Chinese vessel of ramming a Philippine boat in the disputed South China Sea, causing it to sink and putting the lives of the crew at risk.
Although the 22 fishermen onboard were rescued by a Vietnamese fishing vessel in the area, Philippine officials said the collision on Sunday had left them “to the mercy of the elements.”
“We condemn in the strongest terms the cowardly action of the Chinese fishing vessel and its crew for abandoning the Filipino crew,” Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said in a statement.

“This is not the expected action from a responsible and friendly people.”
Mr. Lorenzana called for a formal investigation and for diplomatic action “to prevent a repeat of this incident.”
The Chinese Embassy in Manila, the Philippine capital, could not be reached for comment on Wednesday, which was a holiday in the Philippines commemorating its independence from Spain.
President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines has courted China as a strategic partner since he was elected in 2016. 

He was most recently in China last month, his fourth visit in three years, but bilateral ties have been fraying, particularly over territorial disputes.
The Philippine vessel, FB Gimber1, was anchored near Recto Bank in the South China Sea, a strategically important area that is claimed in whole or in part by China, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam. 

Manila calls the area the West Philippine Sea, and an international tribunal in The Hague ruled in 2016 that it was in the country’s exclusive economic zone.
China has refused to abide by the ruling, and Mr. Duterte has said there is no way to enforce it in the face of China’s military strength.
At a meeting of Asia-Pacific defense officials in Singapore this month, Mr. Lorenzana called on all South China Sea claimants to exercise utmost caution to prevent an escalation of hostilities. 

He pushed for freedom of navigation in the area, while the United States said it was investing heavily in new technology that would improve its defense capabilities along with those of its allies. 

Patrick Shanahan, the acting United States secretary of defense, also urged Beijing to follow a “rules-based order” in the region.
Hundreds of protesters marched in Manila on Wednesday over China’s actions in the South China Sea and called on Filipinos to defend their country’s sovereignty.
Pamalakaya, a group of fishermen who joined the protest, demanded that Chinese vessels immediately withdraw from the disputed area and that Duterte toughen his stance against the Chinese dictator, Xi Jinping.
Bobby Roldan, a spokesman for the group, said members could not fish in peace “courtesy of China’s intimidating presence in our waters.”
“And yet we don’t hear any condemnation from the Duterte administration,” he said.

Beijing's South China Sea Bet On Duterte's 'Friendship' Is Souring

By Panos Mourdoukoutas

China’s bet on Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte’s ‘friendship” to advance its South China Sea agenda is beginning to sour.
Last Monday, the Philippines high court instructed key government agencies, like the Philippine Navy, police and the Coast Guard, to do what Rodrigo Duterte should have done three years ago: protect reefs and marine life in Scarborough Shoal, Second Thomas Shoal and Mischief Reef.
That’s according to Radio Free Asia report (RFA), which quoted presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo saying that the government was “duty bound” to enforce the court order.
Apparently, the Philippines’ high court ruling puts an end to Duterte’s flip-flops on the South China Sea disputes, which begun in 2016.
Back then, China lost an international arbitration ruling to the Philippines and its close ally the US regarding its claim that it has historic title over the waters of the South China Sea.
In theory, that is. 

In practice, the ruling didn’t mean much. 

While China lost the ruling, it won a new “friend,” Rodrigo Duterte. 

Rather than teaming up with the US to enforce the ruling, he walked the other way.
He sided with Beijing on the dispute, and pursued a “divorce” from the U.S. 

On April 2018, for instance, Duterte backed off his earlier decision to raise the Philippine flag in disputed islands, following Beijing’s “friendly” advice.
Apparently, Duterte was concerned about the prospect of an outright war with Beijing should he had tried to enforce the international arbitration ruling, reasoning that America wouldn’t rush to the Philippines side in that case.
But there was something else in the works, it seems. 

Beijing had offered Manila a couple of promises, as was discussed in previous pieces here. 

Like the promise to finance Duterte’s “Build, Build, Build” initiative, and the promise of peace and a partnership for prosperity.
Meanwhile, there are a couple of things Beijing and Duterte miscalculated. 

The first is that America has assured the Philippines that it would come to that nation’s defense if it comes under attack in the South China Sea.
That’s according to reports in early March, when Washington reaffirmed a defense code that Manila has sought to revise.
Secondarily, this has removed a major snag in relations between Washington and Manila; and seems to have appeased two former Filipino officials who filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC) over China’s aggression in the disputed South China Sea.
But not Rodrigo Duterte. 

He didn’t seem to be ready for another foreign policy flip-flop – nor does he seem ready to get the country’s South China Sea Policy right: i.e. stick with the international law.
Until this week, that is, when the Philippines high court ruling forced him to do so, ruining China’s bet on his “friendship.”

Chinese Aggressions

Pompeo promises intervention if Philippines is attacked by China
By Regine Cabato and Shibani Mahtani

Philippines Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin, left, shakes hands with visiting Secretary of State Mike Pompeo after their joint news conference in Manila on March 1. 

MANILA — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday that any attack on Philippine aircraft or ships in the South China Sea will trigger a response from the United States under a mutual defense treaty between the two countries, a firm assurance to its longtime ally amid rising Chinese militarization in the contested waters.
“China’s island building and military activities in the South China Sea threaten [Philippine] sovereignty, security and therefore economic livelihood, as well as that of the United States,” said Pompeo, speaking at a joint news conference in Manila, where he landed last night after the conclusion of the Hanoi summit between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
“As the South China Sea is part of the Pacific, any armed attack on Philippine forces, aircraft or public vessels in the South China Sea will trigger mutual defense obligations under Article 4 of our mutual defense treaty,” Pompeo added.
The article spells out that the Philippines and the United States would come to each other’s defense if either is attacked, as such an attack on either party would “be dangerous to its own peace and safety.”
Pompeo’s comments seek to reassure the Southeast Asian country at a time when China is increasingly building military outposts on artificial islands it has claimed for its own in the contested waters. 

China claims it has "historic" rights to the South China Sea, a crucial waterway where one-third of global trade flows, but its claims overlap with that of several nations in the region, including Vietnam and the Philippines.
Pompeo’s visit also comes at a time when the long-standing alliance between the Philippines and the United States is being questioned by some skeptics inside the administration of Rodrigo Duterte, who has been courting investment from and closer ties with China. 

Last November, Xi Jinping visited Manila, the first Chinese leader to make a state visit there in over a decade.
Pompeo, who is making his first trip to Manila as secretary of state, met with Duterte as well as Philippine Foreign Secretary Teddy Locsin.
A pro-China camp in the administration “is using the argument that China is a geographical reality, whereas America is a geopolitical anomaly,” said Richard Heydarian, a Manila-based defense and security analyst. 

“People asking: Do we really need America? That’s so Cold War.”
Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana has called for a review of the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty between Washington and Manila, the agreement that guarantees a U.S. military response if the Philippines is to be attacked. 

The Philippine defense establishment has long argued that the language of the document is too vague, especially as China gets more aggressive in the waters off the Philippine archipelago.
A report earlier this month from the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI), run by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, found that China had sent a large fleet of almost 100 ships to stop construction work by the Philippines on an island in the Spratly chain.
After Pompeo’s assurances that the South China Sea is covered in the mutual defense agreement, the “impetus will be on Manila to decide whether that’s good enough,” said Greg Poling, director of the AMTI.
Speaking at their joint news conference Friday, Locsin said the review of the mutual defense treaty was something that “requires further thought,” indicating that he believed Pompeo’s comments were a sufficient guarantee.
“We are very assured, we’re very confident, that the United States has — in the words of Trump to our president: We have your back,” he said.
Speaking to reporters as he flew from Manila and Hanoi, Pompeo said he was “absolutely” concerned about Chinese influence in the Philippines and more broadly across the region. 

In his Friday statement, he warned his counterparts about Chinese state-backed companies — who have promised billions of dollars in big-ticket infrastructure and investment in the Philippines under Duterte.
“American companies . . . operate with the highest standards of transparency, and adherence to the rule of law,” said Pompeo. 

“The same cannot be said for Chinese state-run or state-backed enterprises.”

Chinese Aggressions

South China Sea: Indonesia And Vietnam Prove Duterte Wrong
By Panos Mourdoukoutas

Indonesia joined Vietnam recently to challenge Duterte’s doctrine in the South China Sea.
That’s the notion that any Asian-Pacific country that dares to tame Beijing’s ambitions to control the entire South China Sea will face war with China.
This week, Indonesia drew a “red line” in the South China Sea establishing fishing rights in areas where China claims “overlapping” rights, according to BenarNews.
Indonesia’s move comes roughly two years after the country renamed its maritime region in the southwest part of the South China Sea as the “North Natuna Sea,” asserting sovereignty in the area.
Meanwhile, Vietnam has been taken its own steps to tame Beijing’s ambitions to control the South China Sea. 

Last month, Hanoi pushed for a pact to outlaw many of China’s ongoing activities in the South China Sea. 

Like the building of artificial islands, blockades and offensive weaponry such as missile deployments; and the Air Defense Identification Zone—a conduct code China initiated back in 2013.
Chinese, Indonesian, and Philippines Shares
These activities are part of Beijing’s efforts to assert complete dominance in the South China Sea and push the US out.
“Although China does not want to usurp the United States’ position as the leader of the global order, its actual aim is nearly as consequential,” says Oriana Skylar Mastro in “The Stealth Superpower: How China Hid Its Global Ambitions,”published in the January/February issue of Foreign Affairs. “In the Indo-Pacific region, China wants complete dominance.; it wants to force the United States out and become the region’s unchallenged political, economic, and military hegemon.”
That’s why America has stepped up patrols in disputed South China Sea waters, asserting its willingness to keep the waterway an open sea to all commercial and military vessels.
And that has provided some sort of insurance for Indonesia and Vietnam against an unmeasured response from China.
Meanwhile, Indonesia’s and Vietnam’s moves have proved Duterte wrong: standing up to China doesn’t lead to war.
So far, financial markets in the region have been discounting these developments as “noise,” rather than something more serious, focusing instead on the trade war between Beijing and Washington. 

But they could come back to haunt markets once the trade war is settled.
A growing conflict between China on the one side and America on the other over who will write the navigation rules for the South China Sea raises geopolitical risks for the global economy. 

And it adds to investor anxieties over the fate of international trade and the economic integration of the Asia-Pacific region.

Chinese expansionism

Vietnam Dares What Philippines Didn't
By Panos Mourdoukoutas

In the South China Sea disputes, Vietnam dares to do what the Philippines didn’t: challenge China’s mission to turn the vast waterway into its own sea.
That’s according to a recent Reuters report, which claims that Vietnam is pushing for a pact that will outlaw many of China’s ongoing activities in the South China Sea. 

Like the building of artificial islands, blockades and offensive weaponry such as missile deployments; and the Air Defence Identification Zone—a conduct code China initiated back in 2013.
This isn’t the first time Hanoi is challenging China’s claims in the South China Sea. 

Back in July of 2017, Vietnam granted Indian oil firm ONGC Videsh a two-year extension to explore oil block 128, according to another Reuters report.
And that’s something Beijing loudly opposed.
In recent years, China has considered the South China Sea its own. 

All of it, including the artificial islands Beijing has been building in disputed waters, and the economic resources that are hidden below the vast sea area. 

And it is determined to use its old and new naval powers to make sure that no other country reaches for these resources without its permission.
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte understands Beijing’s determination very well. 

Back in April of 2018 he reversed his earlier decision to raise the Philippine flag in disputed islands, following Beijing’s “friendly” advice.
A year before that incident, the Philippines and its close ally, the U.S., won an international arbitration ruling that China has no historic title over the waters of the South China Sea. 

Yet Duterte didn’t dare enforce it. 

Instead, he sided with Beijing on the dispute, and sought a “divorce” from the U.S.
Duterte’s flip-flops saved peace in the South China Sea by changing the rules of the game for China and the US, at least according to his own wisdom.
That doesn’t seem to be the case with Vietnam– which also claims parts of the waterway.
And it has a strong ally on its side: the US, which has been trying to enforce the freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, and save peace, too!
So far, financial markets in the region do not seem that concerned, at least for now. 

Instead, they have been focusing on the economic fundamentals rather than the geopolitics of the region; and on the rising interest rates in the US.

China, Vietnam, and Philippines Shares

But things may change in the future, as an escalation of South China Sea disputes could add to investor anxieties fueled by the US-China trade war.

Chinese peril: China’s Huawei should not be allowed in UK 5G telecoms

Huawei should be kept out of UK’s 5G to protect national security 
By Charles Parton

The British government is debating whether Huawei, the Chinese telecoms company, should be allowed to bid for the new 5G telecoms system.
No similar debate was held in Beijing: foreign companies are excluded from China’s 5G. 
Debating Huawei has not been the British government’s strong suit.
The 2013 Intelligence Committee report on Huawei’s involvement in an earlier generation of telecoms expresses shock that no ministerial consideration was given to national security.
Its conclusions and recommendations ought to make a debate now redundant. 
The Intelligence Committee defined critical national infrastructure (CNI) as something “the loss or compromise of which would have a major, detrimental impact on the availability or integrity of essential services, leading to severe economic or social consequences or to loss of life”.
These days one might say that information and communications technology (ICT) has become ‘super-critical’: they controls power, water and other CNI.
Surely the last thing a government should do is to make its country vulnerable to pressure, direct or indirect, from an adversary or competitor with very different security interests and values. 
Our own experience should tell us that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is not averse to playing hard ball. 
If we have forgotten being put in the doghouse because our prime minister met the Dalai Lama, we might cast our minds to Norway’s turn after the Nobel Prize was awarded to a leading dissident, or to CCP directed economic measures (particularly reducing package tourism) against the Philippines over the South China Sea dispute, and against South Korea over the deployment of THAAD missiles.
Giving the Chinese the ability to disrupt or switch off your critical national infrastructure (CNI) is granting them a far bigger cudgel. 
Let us leave aside the debate as to whether Huawei is a private company.
Dispelling the fog in the pursuit of transparency has progressed little over the years.
What is clear — the Party has told us so — is that through the Party committee embedded inside private companies the CCP has an enormous say in their affairs.
Furthermore, recent national security legislation lays down that companies must do the Party’s bidding when called upon to do so for national security reasons. 
With an eye to avoiding the cudgel, defenders of Huawei say that the “cell” (a Huawei run and financed organisation which vets UK personnel for anything untoward) has been operating for over 10 years and has found nothing.
The Intelligence committed was not impressed in 2013.
Among the reasons two stand out.

• First, given Huawei’s management of the cell, who guards the guards? 
• Second, it is far easier to hide a needle in a haystack than it is to find one. 

Or as the Intelligence Committee put it: “While we note GCHQ’s [a UK security organisation] confidence in BT’s management of its network, the software that is embedded in telecoms equipment consists of ‘over a million lines of code’ and GCHQ has been clear from the outset that ‘it is just impossible to go through that much code and be absolutely confident you have found everything’.”
Sometimes, you hear the argument put forward that the US may be snooping on the UK.
Quite possibly.
But the UK has worked closely with the Americans since 1917.
China eschews all formal alliances except with one country — North Korea.
The UK shares with the US both its values of freedoms and of democracy as well as its security interests. 
If we must put our eggs in someone else’s basket, whose is safer?
The CCP will not take kindly to Huawei’s exclusion; it may threaten the “Golden Era” of ties that the countries are said to currently enjoy.
But unspoken, it will understand the reason.
It knows that you cannot have concrete proof of interference in ICT, unless you are lucky enough to find the needle in the haystack, and you don’t take the risk of putting your security in the hands of a potential adversary.
There is a further, more powerful argument.
The intelligence sharing agreement between the “Five Eyes” — US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand — is of immense importance. 
This is not just about sharing intelligence, for example on terrorism or security threats, but about working together on designing and operating those systems and technologies for intelligence collection.
Three of the Five Eyes have ruled out Huawei from their own systems. 
They will not trust the UK fully if Huawei is inside our systems, even with the “cell”.
This loss would in itself be colossal, but other countries, Germany, Japan, France for example, might also not trust us if we were not up to what one academic calls “Five Eyes Standard”.
Should the government be willing to bet our security on the benevolence and restraint of the CCP?
In the light of its current repression of its own people, its aggressive foreign policy and interference abroad, that surely crosses the border from naïveté into irresponsibility.

Paper Dragon

China threatens foreign ships and planes daily in the South China Sea, but no one is yielding any ground

• Warnings directed at the Philippines are much more menacing than those directed at the US military, meaning that China is purposefully calibrating its responses to intimidate smaller, weaker claimant states.
• Both the armed forces of the Philippines and the US military continue their operations as planned, disregarding Chinese threats and warnings.

By Ryan Pickrell

China is threatening foreign ships and planes operating in the South China Sea on a "daily" basis, according to the chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
"It's a daily occurrence," General Carlito Galvez Jr. told the press Monday, the Inquirer reported. "Our pilots just reply, 'We are just doing our routine flight on our jurisdiction and territory.'"
The office of the president of the Philippines praised its country's pilots for disregarding Chinese warnings and threats, which can be particularly aggressive.
"Philippine military aircraft, I'm warning you again: Leave immediately or you will bear responsibility for all the consequences," a disgruntled Chinese voice shouted over the radio as a Philippine military plane flew over the hotly contested South China Sea recently, according to a BBC report.
The Chinese also challenge the US military. 

Last Friday, the Chinese military radioed a US Navy P-8A Poseidon reconnaissance plane six times as it flew past Chinese strongholds in the Spratly Islands. 

"Leave immediately and keep out to avoid any misunderstanding," the voice on the radio directed.
A US Navy pilot called the radio queries "routine," adding that "it really has no effect on any operations or anything we do."
Chinese radio responses to US and Philippine military aircraft overflights can be heard in the following video clip, a piece of the BBC report that was tweeted out this past weekend: The tone of the radio query directed at the US aircraft is noticeably softer than that of the call aimed at the Philippine plane. 

Nonetheless, the US military had some strong words for China, which is rapidly expanding its military presence in the South China Sea through the deployment of jamming technology, anti-ship cruise missiles, surface-to-air missiles, and other defense equipment intended to tighten China's grip on the territories.
And it's not just planes. 

China also issues warnings to foreign ships, especially when the US Navy decides to conduct a freedom-of-navigation operation in the area.
China's vast claims to the South China Sea were discredited by an international arbitration tribunal two years ago, but Beijing rejected the ruling as well as the authority of the tribunal.

China’s Targeting of Filipino Chinese for Intelligence, Influence and Drug Trafficking

By Anders Corr, Ph.D.

Davao City Vice Mayor Paolo Duterte (L), son of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, and the president’s son-in-law, Manases Carpio (R), take an oath as they attend a senate hearing in Manila on September 7, 2017. Paolo Duterte and Manases Carpio appeared before the inquiry to deny as “baseless” and “hearsay” allegations linking them to large-scale illegal drugs smuggling. 

On June 12, Philippine protesters staged coordinated protests against China in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Vancouver. 

Protest organizer Ago Pedalizo said, “Duterte’s government pursues the ‘sell, sell, sell’ approach to sovereignty as a trade-off to all kickbacks he’ll get from the ‘build, build, build’ economic push of China.” 

His protest group, Filipino American Human Rights Advocates (FAHRA), charged that “Duterte is beholden to the $15-billion loan with monstrous interest rate and China’s investments in Boracay and Marawi, at the expense of Philippine sovereignty. This is not to mention that China remains to be the premier supplier of illegal drugs to the country through traders that include the son, Paolo Duterte, with his P6 billion shabu [methamphetamine] shipment to Davao.”
Paolo Duterte has denied the allegations. 

Philippine and Chinese government offices did not reply to requests for comment.
But, experts have confirmed that kickbacks and drug shipments come through Filipino Chinese networks. 

Current Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte himself has self-identified as Chinese in the course of affirming his sincerity to an accommodating position on the South China Sea conflict. 

He said this to a correspondent on CCTV, a Chinese state television network.
Asked about Duterte and influential Special Assistant to the President Mr. Bong Go, one expert replied, “Duterte has been given money by the Chinese as early as when he was mayor [of Davao City, Mindanao]. The Chinese will not give it to him directly, but through the Filipino Chinese. Bong Go is a Filipino Chinese.”
Another source with knowledge of elite networks in the Philippines confirmed that Chinese intelligence services focus on Filipinos of Chinese ancestry in their attempts to infiltrate the Philippines, including Mr. Bong Go and other Filipino Chinese in Duterte’s inner circle. 

He added that some Chinese networks in the Philippines specialize in the illegal drug trade and business more generally, and serve a dual intelligence function. 

He said that China currently has “unprecedented access” to Duterte.
Chinese state targeting of overseas Chinese for intelligence, drugs and influence operations is well documented in a growing field of study on Chinese influence operations globally. 

The contemporary literature has been developed by an impressive number of scholars and journalists, including Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, Anne-Marie Brady, Kerry Brown, Kevin Carrico, J. Michael Cole, John Garnaut, Bill Gertz, Gerry Groot, Clive Hamilton, Alex Joske, Shanthi Kalathil, Peter Mattis, Jonas Parello-Plesner, Josh Rogin, Mark Stokes, Glenn Tiffert, and James To. 

A comedian, Chris Chappell, is even covering the issue and making it accessible beyond audiences for relatively dry scholarship and foreign policy analysis.
Ethnicities other than Chinese are also targeted, of course, but Chinese authorities single out those of their own ethnicity, putting them into particular danger. 

This is arguably a racist or discriminatory practice by China’s intelligence services, which victimizes and endangers overseas Chinese. 

A former attaché in the United States’ embassy in Beijing, for example, explained that China’s intelligence services target those of Chinese ancestry who work in foreign missions. 
“Ethnic Chinese serving in Western embassies in China bear special risks. Chinese intelligence services vigorously target them for compromise. The CCP treats them like race-traitors when they aren’t compromised, and their American countrymen are sometimes insensitive to the pressure they are under. I’ve known ethnic Chinese Americans that finished their service in China embittered by the experience.”

Another former attaché, this one defense attaché in the U.S. embassy in Bangkok, wrote that China’s strategy of targeting those of Chinese ancestry extends back decades. 

“Targeting the diaspora has long been the practice,” he said.
“In the 1980’s, when ethnic Chinese were still a rarity in the foreign service, it was the ethnic Chinese wives who were targeted. I know of a case of an American official in the Embassy in Thailand who had an ethnic Chinese-Thai wife, and he was being induced through his wife, who was dangled with tempting business propositions and offers of cash.”
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, tasked with assisting counterintelligence at U.S. embassies abroad, declined to comment.
Four sources of information in this article asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak on the subject, or because they feared reprisals.

Warning sounded over China's 'debtbook diplomacy'

Academics identify 16 countries loaned billions that they can’t afford to repay
By Helen Davidson
Sri Lankan monks take pictures at the opening of an airport built with Chinese money in Hambantota.

China’s “debtbook diplomacy” uses strategic debts to gain political leverage with economically vulnerable countries across the Asia-Pacific region, the US state department has been warned in an independent report.

The academic report, from graduate students of the Harvard Kennedy school of policy analysis, was independently prepared for the state department to view and assessed the impact of China’s strategy on the influence of the US in the region.
The paper identifies 16 “targets” of China’s tactic of extending hundreds of billions of dollars in loans to countries that can’t afford to pay them, and then strategically leveraging the debt.
It said while Chinese infrastructure investment in developing countries wasn’t “inherently” against US or global interests, it became problematic when China’s use of its leverage ran counter to US interests, or if the US had strategic interests in a country which had its domestic stability undermined by unsustainable debt.
The academics identified the most concerning countries, naming Pakistan and Sri Lanka as states where the process was “advanced”, with deepening debt and where the government had already ceded a key port or military base, as well places including Papua New Guinea and Thailand, where China had not yet used its amassed debt leverage.
Papua New Guinea, which “has historically been in Australia’s orbit”, was also accepting unaffordable Chinese loans. 

While this wasn’t a significant concern yet, the report said, the country offered a “strategic location” for China, as well as large resource deposits.
While there was a lack of “individual diplomatic clout” in Cambodia, Laos and the Philippines, Chinese debt could give China a “proxy veto” in Asean, the academics said.

They also warned that the 2023 expiration of the compact of free association between Micronesia, Palau and the Marshall Islands could “threaten the unfettered basing access and right of strategic denial the US has enjoyed since world war two, and help the Chinese navy extend its reach past the first island chain into the blue-water Pacific”, it said.
China’s methods were “remarkably consistent”, the report said, beginning with infrastructure investments under its $1tn belt and road initiative, and offering longer term loans with extended grace periods, which was appealing to countries with weaker economies and governance.
Construction projects, which the report said had a reputation for running over budget and yielding underwhelming returns, make debt repayments for the host nations more difficult.
“The final phase is debt collection,” it said. 

“When countries prove unable to pay back their debts, China has already and is likely to continue to offer debt-forgiveness in exchange for both political influence and strategic equities.”
As a case study, the report cited specific concerns about Sri Lanka granting China an 85% stake in a 99-year lease on a major port in Hambantota.
The deal, which the report described as “opaque and contentious”, came after a decade of deepening debt ties with China. 

In 2007 China offered financing for the $361m port at a time when other entities were concerned about human rights and commercial viability, and then loaned a further $1.9bn for upgrades and an airport.
By 2017, when the port deal was signed, Sri Lanka owed more than $8bn to Chinese-controlled firms. 

The port, which was yet to generate a profit, became a “debt trap”.
“Once Sri Lanka made the initial commitment, the sunk cost and need to generate profit to pay off the original loans drove it to take out additional loans, a cycle that repeated itself until it was finally cornered into giving up the port in a debt-for-equity swap,” it said.
“This has sparked fears that Hambantota could one day become a Chinese naval hub, and sent a worrying signal to other debt-strapped developing nations.”
China has invested in or financed infrastructure developments across the Asian and Pacific regions, including large-scale projects representing sizeable portions of host nations’ GDP. 

The loans often require that Chinese companies build the projects, and complaints that locals are overlooked for a fly-in Chinese workforce are frequent.
It has also sought to expand its military presence, prompting warnings for nearby countries including Australia. 

Australia’s major parties have also voiced concern about the country’s diminishing influence in the Pacific.
The report recommended that the US target and streamline its investments, strengthen alliances and manage debt burdens, including through bolstering India’s role as a regional leader.
Last year India warned against China’s expanding BRI and urged financial responsibility with projects that didn’t create “unsustainable debt burden for communities”.

Manila’s pivot to Beijing spells peril—not just opportunity—for Chinese-Filipinos

By Clinton Palanca

In 1417 the sultan of Sulu, now part of the southern Philippines, sailed to China to pay tribute to Zhu Di, the third emperor of the Ming dynasty. 

After the sultan fell ill and died unexpectedly on his way home, the emperor built an elaborate tomb for him in Dezhou, in Shandong province. 

In recent years that tomb was restored—with financial help from a Chinese-Filipino business leader—and last month trade and cultural groups marked the voyage’s 600th anniversary with a flurry of activities.
Their efforts to play up historic ties between the two nations come amid growing mistrust in the Philippines of the nation’s ethnic Chinese, who comprise about 1% of the population but have an outsize influence over the economy. 

They are seen as midwives to China’s economic expansion in the region, and a pivot to Beijing by president Rodrigo Duterte places even more opportunities within their reach. 

But the social inequality, coupled with ethnic distrust, could erode the decades of trust-building that makes their integration so different from the segregation experienced by ethnic Chinese in Indonesia and Malaysia—nearby nations that also received many of the immigrants who left China in the years prior to the start of communist rule in 1949.
Duterte, who is scheduled to hold bilateral talks with Xi Jinping on Saturday (Nov. 11) in Vietnam, ushered in the thaw in relations between Beijing and Manila after taking office in mid-2016. 

Before then, the relationship was marked more by Philippine anger over China seizing control of reefs, shoals, and other features in the South China Sea claimed by both nations. 

Public indignation culminated in Manila opening a case against China’s sweeping maritime claims before an international tribunal in the Hague, which ruled in favor of the Philippines in July 2016. 

But Beijing dismissed the ruling and has been busy fortifying artificial islands it’s set atop reefs—some quite near the Philippines—complete with airstrips, barracks, and missile shelters.
China’s nine-dash line, with which it dubiously claims most of the sea, intersects with large portions of the Philippine exclusive economic zone, where it legally has sole rights to the natural resources in and below the water. 

Beijing favors joint exploration of oil and natural gas within the disputed waters, but in the Philippines that could translate to infringing on national sovereignty. 

Anti-China sentiment could turn into anti-Chinese sentiment. 
Despite the win at the Hague, Duterte has kept the maritime dispute on the back burner, though this weekend he’s expected to ask Xi for clarification on China’s position and express concerns about militarization in the waterway. 

His focus has instead been on boosting commercial links between the two nations. 

In October 2016, just four months into his term, he went on a four-day state visit to Beijing, announcing his “separation from the United States” and telling his hosts, “I’ve realigned myself in your ideological flow.” 

Although the business sector of the delegation had invited only two dozen delegates, hundreds of businessmen crashed the party. 

Among them were over a hundred members of the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry.
Upon his return to the Philippines, Mr. Duterte announced that he had scored $24 billion worth of deals. 

But it remains unclear how much of that is actual investment, and how much is loans to be funneled through the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Bank of China. 

The interest rate on loans has not been disclosed, either. 

Alarmed observers soon warned that the Philippine national debt could balloon dramatically during Duterte’s six-year term.
More recent Chinese migrants who arrived after 1990, known as the xinqiao, have been gaining notoriety in the news, largely because of links to the illegal drugs flowing in from China. 

In September last year authorities raided a large methamphetamine lab masquerading as a pig farm north of Manila and arrested seven Chinese nationals linked to it. 

One Chinese businessman was the subject of a senate inquiry last August as the recipient of about 600 kg (1,323 lbs) of meth shipped out of Xiamen, a coastal city in China. 

As of 2010 there were 61,372 registered Chinese nationals; many more are believed to be in the country illegally.
Chinese migrants also operate a vast network of illegal mining operations throughout the country, achieved by bribing local officials and using the loophole of the 1991 Small-Scale Mining Act, which was intended to help disenfranchised indigenous communities. 

Chinese mining companies operating in the country use the names of local mining groups to avoid attention. 

In 2012, 97% of the gold mined from the Philippines was carried offshore unregulated, most of it ending up in Hong Kong.
The older generations of Chinese-Filipinos, who now hold Philippine passports and speak fluent Tagalog and English, have been quick to distance themselves from the newer migrants. 

But the mainstream population is not always able to parse the difference. 

China’s territorial aggression, as well as its economic expansion, have already resulted in widespread distrust of China. 

The Chinese-Filipinos are seen to be collaborators in China’s incursion into the Philippine economy—and vice versa. 

Philippine investment in China is still greater than Chinese investment in the Philippines. 

The nostalgic allegiance of the overseas Chinese has been targeted by Xi, who spent 17 years of his government service in Fujian, where many of the migrants come from.
The task of regulation falls on the government. 

But the laws on foreign ownership are easily circumvented. 

The finance secretary recently announced that an upcoming constitutional amendment will further ease restrictions on foreign ownership. 

In the absence of enforceable regulation controlling capital flow, Chinese-Filipinos will have to seriously evaluate what the long-term consequences of their relations with China and Chinese businesses will be—and the tensions these may raise. 

Awareness must continue to be raised in order to differentiate the issues of territorial sovereignty, aggressive investment, and local Chinese dominance over the Philippine economy.
While the history of friendship between China and the Philippines since the sultan of Sulu sailed to China six centuries ago are worth celebrating, it must also be noted that the journey was that of a subservient vassal. 

In order for the Philippines to maintain its economic independence from China, the Chinese-Filipinos must remain clear-eyed in defending the interests of the country where they have made their home.

Chinese Peril

Mattis to make call for Asean unity against China at meeting of defence ministers

The Straits Times

US Defence Secretary James Mattis will meet his counterparts from Japan and South Korea on Oct 23 to discuss North Korea. He is due to visit Thailand and South Korea as well on his eight-day tour.

CLARK FREEPORT, PHILIPPINES - US Defence Secretary James Mattis is expected to make a call for South-east Asian unity against China during a meeting of defence ministers in the Philippines on Monday (Oct 23), the Associated Press reported.
The Asean bloc has been divided as the US and China vie for influence in the region, with the tensions magnified by a dispute over China's island-building activities in the South China Sea.
US influence has taken a hit from President Donald Trump's decision to cancel the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact championed by his predecessor, Mr Barack Obama, appearing to give Mr Obama's "pivot to Asia" short shrift.
"(Asean gives) voice to those who want relations between states to be based on respect, and not on predatory economics or on the size of militaries," General Mattis told reporters ahead of his meetings in the Philippines, though he did not mention China by name. 

"The United States remains unambiguously committed to supporting Asean."
The US sees a united Asean as a bulwark against China, which pursues individual bilateral relations with members at the expense of the bloc. 

It also wants Asean to squeeze North Korea amid a crisis over Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions.
Gen Mattis' comments echoed US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's call for a India as a populous, democratic counterweight to China, inviting it to take a leading security role in the Indo-Pacific region. 

The US has made India a major defence partner, offering it top-flight weapons systems. 

Gen Mattis will meet Indian Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman during his trip to the country this week.
On Monday, Gen Mattis was to hold an informal meeting with Asean members, who have been divided on taking a strong joint position over the South China Sea, making no mention of a 2016 ruling in The Hague that found no legal basis for China's expansive territorial claims.
Cambodia and Laos have taken sides with China in the dispute, while US allies Thailand, Vietnam and recently the Philippines have opposed Beijing. 

But under Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines relationship with China has warmed even as US ties soured.
Gen Mattis will meet his counterparts from Japan and South Korea on Monday to discuss North Korea. 

He is due to visit Thailand and South Korea as well on his eight-day tour.

China is helping redevelop what was once the US’s largest overseas military base

By Therese Reyes

Holding down the fort. 

Clark Freeport Zone, Philippines
It has been 26 years since the US military, prodded by a volcanic eruption, left Clark Air Base in the Philippines. 

But signs of its stay, which lasted over eight decades, remain. 

The site follows city planning established by Americans, complete with barn-style houses lining some roads. 

Still present are old barracks, the parade grounds, and a veterans’ cemetery for US and Filipino soldiers and their families.Old military barn houses. 

“A lot has changed, but the basics are there,” said Noel Flores, a 47-year-old local lawyer. 

“If you’ve been to areas in California or particularly in New Jersey, the atmosphere is quite similar.”
But looks can be deceiving. 

While Clark was once the largest overseas American base, today the site is being transformed into a new business district that will one day rival Manila. 

And it’s China, not the US, whose presence is increasingly felt in the area.
Last October, Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte surprised many by announcing his “separation” from the US while he “aligned” with China. 

Beijing, for its part, pledged to invest heavily in badly needed infrastructure improvements in the Philippines—including ones that will help transform Clark and its surrounds.
Given the base’s once key role in the US projecting power in Southeast Asia, China’s hand in its transformation is a sharp reminder of Beijing’s growing influence in the Philippines and beyond.

New friends
Not everyone was surprised by Duterte’s October 2016 announcement, which he delivered while on a state visit to Beijing. 

To political analyst Ramon Casiple, the move was about normalizing relations not just with China, but with the US as well.
“It is not to break relations with the US, but to put [Duterte], the administration, and the country in a position that has leverage against both,” Casiple said. 

In his mind, the US went from having a “preferential” relationship with the Philippines to a normal one “on the same level as China.”
Another reason for Duterte’s embrace of China is his desire to decentralize power away from Manila. To do so, he’ll need to vastly improve—with financial help from the outside—the infrastructure of other parts of the nation. 

Clark is one of the more promising places to do that, thanks to its size, location, and the infrastructure previously installed by the US. (Japan, ever wary of China’s moves, is also getting involved, offering to fund a railway link between the airports in Clark and Manila.)

Pampanga province. 

During its heyday, Clark Air Base had a population of 15,000 and encompassed about 600 sq km (230 sq miles) of land, including a military reservation.
Today the site, located about 80 km (50 miles) northwest of Manila in the provinces of Pampanga and Tarlac, is home to the Clark Freeport Zone. 

With tax-free importing and other incentives, the zone lures companies from a wide variety of industries. 

They in turn employ tens of thousands of local residents from the surrounding areas.
But bigger plans are afoot for the former base. 

An urban development called New Clark City, estimated to be completed by 2021, will be located next to the freeport zone, and offer the same financial breaks. 

While such plans have been hindered in the past by politics and business rivalries, Duterte is pushing them forward.

China steps in
When he returned from Beijing last year, Duterte brought with him $24 billion worth of investments and pledges. 

According to the Philippines trade ministry, at least three projects relate to developments in Clark, including an industrial park in New Clark City (sometimes called Clark Green City) and a cargo rail link between Clark and Subic Bay. 

The latter is also a freeport zone and home to a former US naval base. 

Another project calls for China’s Huawei to build tech infrastructure in the area.
Such investments are in line with China’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative, which aims to link China (and its products) to countries in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe via new infrastructure projects, especially transportation-related ones.
Clark’s central location in Asia, its proximity to Manila, and its onsite international airport mean China won’t have to wait long to reap the benefits of helping the Philippines. 

In a few years its businesses will be able to take full advantage of the incentives on offer.
The projects will also benefit the Philippines, though the deals may not be as good as they seem. Some question the credibility of the Chinese investors. 

Such projects could make the Philippines heavily indebted to China, which in turn could weaken its ability to stand up to Beijing in the contested South China Sea. (It was the US military’s withdrawal from the Philippines, mainly Clark and Subic, that opened the way for China’s territorial aggression in that vital waterway.)

A welcome change
While China’s growing influence worries some, many area residents welcome the new developments at Clark. 

“There will be more tourists coming here, more job opportunities,” said Mark Felker, a 24-year-old working as a museum tour guide at the former base.
After the Americans left in 1991, Clark’s freeport status allowed it to transition into a destination for cheap imported goods. 

At one point, there were at least 10 duty-free shops at the former base, but by the mid-2000s, many had closed down.An upcoming business incubator in Clark.

The main concern for locals isn’t China, but something more pedestrian: the lack of public transportation in Clark. 

Because the zone operates independently from local governments, the jeepneys and motorized tricycles commonly used to get around in the Philippines are not allowed inside. 

A train system would benefit workers in Clark, Felker said, especially those working graveyards shifts in call centers. 

According to the Bases Conversion and Development Authority, charged with developing the former US base, the New Clark City project will include a train system that will also help ease traffic in the surrounding areas.
Clark today is a work in progress. 

New buildings for business incubators and call centers are cropping up near abandoned strip malls. 

A sprawling compound that once housed a hotel, villas, and a casino is now under new management and undergoing an overhaul. 

Roads are being widened and bridges reconstructed, slowing down traffic.
For Flores, all that’s left to do is wait for the promised improvements. 

“I would really have to trust that the officials administering the zone know what they’re doing and that they have it in their heart to look after the greater interests of the future generations.”

An unbreakable bond
Meanwhile, even as China’s presence grows, the ties between the US and the Philippines remain strong.
The Clark Museum, a modest building with three floors of galleries about Clark’s history, has a wing dedicated to its days as a US air base. 

Memorabilia like uniforms and dinnerware (donated by the families of veterans) are displayed in large wooden cabinets, making them look even more like personal heirlooms. 

Many of the museum’s visitors are Filipino-Americans.
Felker, who works at the museum, hails from nearby Angeles City and knows about Clark’s history only from books and anecdotes passed on by his family. 

But like many from the surrounding area, he has an affinity for the place. 

“I was a product of this base because my grandfather was an American,” he said.The Clark veterans cemetery, with renovations in the distance. 

The connection between the Philippines and the US is a difficult one to break because it is ingrained in policies, culture, and, in cases like Felker’s, family. 

The latest US census report shows that Filipinos are the second-largest Asian group in the US. 

And in the Philippines, there are as many as 250,000 people who are part American.
Political links also run deep. 

Thanks in large part to a mutual defense treaty signed in 1951, the US is now assisting the Philippine military in its effort to reestablish control of Marawi, a city on the southern island of Mindanao that was overtaken in late May by terrorists linked to ISIL. 

Such assistance comes despite Duterte’s proclaimed “separation” from the US.
“Filipinos are America’s No. 1 fan club,” Casiple said. 

“Our relation with the US is too deep historically. It’s beyond Duterte.”

Chinese aggressions

China's Threat Of War Against Philippines Is Baseless Scare Tactic
By Anders Corr

On Friday, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said Xi Jinping threatened war if Duterte started developing Philippine oil and gas resources in the South China Sea. 

The Philippines has every right to do so, per the award of an international arbitral tribunal in the Hague last year. 

After describing Xi’s threat, Duterte told his Philippine military audience, “What more could I say?” 

I sympathize. 

The Philippines is a much smaller country militarily, economically, and in diplomatic power, than is China. 

As Duterte points out, war with China would be a “massacre and it will destroy everything,” starting in Palawan, a long Philippine island bordering the South China Sea.

A US air force personnel looks at a Philippine flag patch he exchanged with his Philippine counterpart after the closing ceremony of the annual joint US-Philippines military exercise in Manila on May 19, 2017. The Philippines and the United States launched annual military exercises on May 8 but the longtime allies scaled them down which focuses only on counter-terrorism and disaster relief in line with President Rodrigo Duterte's pivot to China and Russia. 

But let’s consider a few options that show this threat of war for what it is: a baseless scare tactic. First, Duterte could hang tough and seek a stronger stance on the issue by the U.S., which is a Philippine ally per the Mutual Defense Treaty of 1951. 

In his defense, Duterte and his predecessor Benigno Aquino may already have sought such help from the U.S. and gotten turned down or dissuaded. 

That would be a stain on U.S. honor. 

But redoubling his efforts, for example reaching out to Trump and bringing the threat before the United Nations General Assembly, is constitutionally required according to Philippine Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio.
The U.S.-Philippine alliance failed to defend the Philippine EEZ when China occupied Mischief Reef in 1995, and Scarborough Shoal in 2012. 

That is a fact. 

Every day that China continues its occupation, the alliance fails anew.
The U.S. and Philippines together, could easily have defended these locations. 

The Philippines tried briefly at the Scarborough standoff of 2012, but U.S. ships did not join, and then the U.S. and China brokered a deal in which the Philippines backed off, and China stayed. 

Why didn’t the U.S. and Philippines return in force when they realized they had been tricked? 

Given that we all stayed home, we cannot say that China’s willingness to fight has been tested at Scarborough.
When I spoke to several Chinese foreign ministry officials a couple years ago, they said they would not fight back if the U.S. and Philippines removed them from Scarborough by force.

It was a startling admission, one gotten when I surprised them with the question. 

But I bet it is true, even today. 

If China attacked Philippine military forces, or the island of Palawan, the U.S. would come to the aid of the Philippines militarily, and China knows this. 

That would be militarily and economically damaging, if not catastrophic, to both countries. 

Therefore a Chinese war against the Philippines is unlikely to happen as long as the alliance with the U.S. is healthy. 

President Duterte could make this clear to the public in both nations by visiting the White House, and inviting Trump to Malacañang Palace, rather than amplify China’s scare tactics.


Vietnamese protesters hold up posters while shouting anti-China slogans in front of the Chinese embassy in Hanoi on July 8, 2012. Hundreds of people staged the anti-China protest, the second one in a week, after the China National Offshore Oil Corporation announced last month that nine offshore blocks were available for exploration, and said it was seeking bids from foreign companies. Vietnam contends that the blocks 'lie entirely within Vietnam's 200-mile exclusive economic zone.' 

More likely than war would be Chinese attempts to interdict Philippine commercial vessels trying to drill for oil, and offering to sell Philippine oil rights. 

China did this to Vietnam in 2012. 

When Vietnam tried to tow sonar in its EEZ, looking for oil and gas, a Chinese boat ran over the cables and cut them. 

Also in 2012, China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) tried to auction blocks for oil exploration that were within Vietnam's EEZ. 

The Philippines could protect its oil exploration and drilling with its own Coast Guard, perhaps accompanied by U.S., European and Japanese Coast Guard.