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Hedging Bets
Strategic Vision, Special Issue (Summer, 2021)
Philippines seeks security by walking difficult line between US and China
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Rommel C. Banlaoi
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte speaks at the World Economic Forum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
photo: World Economic Forum
China and the United States have always been formidable factors in the formulation and implementation of Philippine foreign and security policy. As a close Asian neighbor, China has friendly relations with the Philippines dating back to the 9th century, even before the arrival of Western colonial powers. These long centuries of friendship resulted in China’s deeply rooted economic, cultural, and political influence on Philippine domestic politics and foreign relations.
The United States, on the other hand, has left an enormous indelible mark on Philippine cultural, economic, social, and political life as an erstwhile colonial master from 1898 to 1946. Filipinos even describe Americans as distant relatives as a result of strong colonial experiences. During the period of colonial rule, Americans, in return, described Filipinos as their “little brown brothers” because of the way Filipinos embraced the American way of life.
Thus, the present US-China rivalry has been affecting the advancement of Philippine national interests. While the People’s Republic of China (PRC) remains the Philippines’ neighbor, Philippine foreign relations have been strongly entangled with the United States, being a distant relative forged by a formal alliance.
The Philippines and the United States have been formal security allies since the signing of the Mutual Defense Treaty in 1951. In fact, the United States recognizes the Philippines as its oldest security ally in Asia. Prior to that, the Philippines was a US colony for almost half a century. As a former colonial master and a current formal ally, there is no doubt that the United States has an enormous influence in shaping Philippine foreign relations.
During the Cold War, Philippine foreign policy was in fact identical with American foreign policy, because of their existing security alliance. Though the post-Cold War period led to the re-examination of this alliance in the context of the Philippines’ attempt to assert a more independent foreign policy with the termination of the Military Bases Agreement in 1991, the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States resulted in the reinvigoration of this alliance. Despite Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s rhetoric of separating from the United States in order to promote friendlier ties with the PRC, the United States continues to provide an important anchor for Philippine security and foreign policy. The 2017 Battle of Marawi demonstrated that the alliance was useful for the Philippines to help it confront common threats with technical assistance, intelligence sharing, and military support from the United States. Recent developments in the South China Sea (SCS) also raise the strategic importance of the United States to counter the PRC’s growing presence and influence in the area.
Conflicting ideologies
While there is no doubt that relations between the Philippines and China can be considered as centuries old, their current formal ties only normalized in 1975. From 1946 to 1974, the Philippines declared the PRC a threat because of ideological conflicts in the Cold War. Their diplomatic relations soured in 1995 when China occupied Mischief Reef, which falls within the Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). But in 2005 the two countries declared the dawning of a golden age of bilateral ties with increased cooperation, despite the SCS dispute. They suffered, however, the lowest moment of their bilateral relations in 2013 when the Philippines filed an international
Philippine Department of National Defense Undersecretary Cesar Yano presides over the opening of the 36th Balikatan Exercise.
US Department of State
Armored vehicles of the Philippine Army take part in the Kalayaan Parade in Luneta, Philippines.
Rhk111
arbitration case against the PRC on the South China Sea as a result of the 2012 Scarborough Shoal standoff. Also, the PRC built artificial islands within the Philippines’ EEZ in 2013. However, the two countries enjoyed new heights in their bilateral ties in 2016, when Duterte implemented a paradigm shift to bring the Philippines into China’s orbit. In 2018, the leaders of the two countries declared a state of comprehensive strategic cooperation in the 21st century as a result of PRC President Xi Jinping’s visit to Manila.
US President Joe Biden’s assumption of office in January 2021, and the growing international activism of Xi, are arguably putting the Philippines on a tightrope. Biden wants to reassert US global leadership while Xi seeks to promote his vision of new global governance.
In his Interim National Security Strategic Guidance (INSSG) released in March 2021, Biden recognized the growing US rivalry not only with the PRC, but also with Russia and other authoritarian states. Biden also lamented that China’s increased assertiveness with its growing power is creating new threats to US global interests. Thus, Biden is urging friends and allies to prevail in strategic competition with the PRC. According to the INSSG, “By restoring US credibility and reasserting forward-looking global leadership, we will ensure that America, not China, sets the international agenda, working alongside others to shape new global norms and agreements that advance our interests and reflect our values.”
A shared future for mankind
Xi, on the other hand, continues to advocate for an alternative global system based on his idea of community and a shared future for mankind. In his recent remarks at the study session of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that was celebrating its centennial anniversary this year, Xi urged party leaders to make friends in order to present an image of a “credible, loveable and respectable China.” To this end, he tasked his officials to be “open and confident, but also modest and humble” when communicating with the world.
Indeed, US-China rivalry is heating up under the respective leadership of Biden and Xi. Amidst this competition, the Philippines is applying a strategy which small states have long used with great powers, by promoting friendly relations with the PRC while maintaining the security alliance with the United States. In doing so, the Philippines, particularly under Duterte, has moved to an active, small-state diplomacy and is risking its security alliance with the United States through its appeasement policy towards the PRC.
While the Duterte administration is promoting friendly relations with Beijing, it still continues “to work closely with the United States on a number of significant security and economic issues.” Though critical of the US military presence in the Philippines, the Duterte administration is not hampering the United States from conducting freedom of navigation operations in the SCS. His government even facilitated entry of US troops into the West Philippine Sea (WPS) during the Trump administration, as well as during the Biden administration. Though the Philippine government refused to join US-led military exercises in the SCS in order to avoid conflict with the PRC, Manila did provide access to US warships entering the WPS.
Amidst the growing US-China geopolitical rivalry in the Indo-Pacific region, the Philippine government upholds the centrality of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in promoting regional security. Its National Security Policy underscores that, “ASEAN centrality is important as it will
allow the region to manage the impacts of geopolitical rivalries among major powers.” Thus, the Philippine government supports the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific, another major document informing the Philippines’ Indo-Pacific security policy and strategy. The ASEAN Outlook recognizes that the AsiaPacific and the Indian Ocean “are amongst the most dynamic in the world as well as centers of economic growth for decades.” As a result, it observes, “These regions continue to experience geopolitical and geo-
Rodrigo Duterte and Xi Jinping shake hands and pose for photographers at the Boao State Guesthouse on April 10, 2018.
Photo: Government of the Philippines
A US Marine Corps F-35B conducts aerial refueling with a KC-135 Stratotanker from Kadena Air Base, Japan, over the Pacific Ocean.
photo: Daryn Murphy
strategic shifts. These shifts present opportunities as well as challenges.” Since Southeast Asia is at the center of the Asia Pacific and the Indian Ocean, the Philippine government regards ASEAN as an important conduit in the promotion of security and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region.
The Philippine government supports ASEAN centrality “as the underlying principle for promoting cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region, with ASEANled mechanisms, such as the East Asia Summit, as platforms for dialogue and implementation of the Indo–Pacific cooperation, while preserving their formats.” The Philippines regards the ASEAN Outlook as an important “guide for ASEAN’s engagement in the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean regions.”
Apparently, the Philippine government is playing both sides, between the two major powers, because of the realization that the PRC needs the Philippines to reduce Washington’s long-established influence in the Indo-Pacific, while the United States needs the Philippines to counter Beijing’s rising influence in the region. In the United States, there is an admission that the Philippines is a very strategic country. According to Michael Green and Gregory Poling at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, “The alliance with the Philippines is an important anchor for US presence in Southeast Asia. The region is central to emerging US-China competition and crucial to our national interests. The alliance made important strides under the Obama administration but has come under strain since 2016 with the election of Rodrigo Duterte as president. Without putting the military and political relationship with Manila back on stable footing, it is difficult to see how we can accomplish our goals of upholding freedom of the seas and deterring Chinese aggression in the South China Sea and beyond.”
Weakening US alliances
For the PRC, on the other hand, the Philippines is also important for achieving its goal of weakening the existing network of US alliances in Asia, which is viewed in Beijing as strategic containment. According to Derrick Grossman of the RAND Corporation, “China, in spite of Duterte’s VFA [Visiting Forces Agreement] reversal, is likely to continue seeing opportunity to disrupt and potentially even divide the US-Philippines alliance. Beijing will only be emboldened to pursue this course with Duterte in office, as he has demonstrated not only anti-American, but also pro-China proclivities. Thus, the United States along with its other allies and partners should not expect the PRC to back down anytime between now and the end of Duterte’s tenure in 2022, which is likely to make this period particularly turbulent.”
There are risks in playing both sides in the major-power game, however. Leaders in the CCP may doubt the sincerity of the Philippines’ friendship with China, considering that Manila continues to maintain its security alliance with the United States. On the other hand, the United States may question the loyalty of the Philippines in the alliance for being friendly with the PRC. In this situation, it is imperative for the Philippines to effectively apply the hedging strategy being practiced by other small states in dealing with major powers involved in strategic competition.
Hedging encourages small states to take both sides, rather than choose one side. Small states hedge to compensate for their weakness, and to overcome their lack of hard power to advance their national interests. Hedging has become the primary response of most states in the Indo-Pacific to address strategic uncertainties unleashed by increasing competition between the PRC and the United States on key regional security issues. Rather than to choose and be torn between a close neighbor and a distant relative, hedging will allow the Philippines to get the best of both worlds in the ongoing US-China major-power rivalry now occurring in the Indo-Pacific, and on the world stage.
US Secretary of State John Kerry chats with President Duterte while on a state visit to the Philippines in July, 2016.
photo: US State Department
Dr. Rommel C. Banlaoi is Professorial Lecturer at the Department of International Studies, Miriam College.He is also the President of the Philippine Association for Chinese Studies.
