"Duterte would not have been able to pull it off."
"Duterte would not have been able to pull it off."
Since the end of World War II only two countries have executed a foreign-policy pivot away from the West and toward the communist world. One is Cuba, which became a Russian ally in 1959, and the second is Nicaragua, which went communist in the 1970s. When he won the Presidency in 2016, Rodrigo Duterte announced his intention to become the third country to execute a similar foreign-policy pivot.
The city-mayor-turned-president declared that his presidency would be marked by a Philippine foreign-policy pivot toward the People's Republic of China and away from its traditional principal ally, the US. Rodrigo Duterte said that the US had not been treating the Philippines very well and that this country would be better off if it replaced the US with China as principal political and economic partner. China would be a more generous partner and the Philippines could expect to receive more economic benefits – loans, investments, trade and grants – from China than from the US in the wake of the pivot to the Philippines’ giant northern neighbor. Closer relations with China would be a much better deal for the Philippines, Malacanang’s new occupant promised the Filipino people.
The nation didn’t see that coming. True, Rodrigo Duterte had over the years been heard to make critical remarks and disparaging comments about the U.S. and its policies – ascribed by some sources to Mr. Duterte’s having been denied a US visa in the distant past – but hardly anyone expected the new Chief Executive to carry a personal embarrassment all the way to the halls of national policymaking. Knowledgeable Filipinos believed that the making of the nation’s foreign policy and the conduct of its diplomatic affairs were far too important to be made hostages to the personal feeling of a government official, no matter how high his or her rank.
Given the extent and depth of Corporate America’s involvement in the Philippine economy, most Filipinos were not inclined to attach much importance to the economic aspect of Mr. Duterte’s announced pivot to China. China’s businessmen and investors were unlikely, in their view, to bring about a significant change in the Philippine economic landscape during President Duterte’s six years in office. By the time Mr. Duterte left Malacanang no meaningful pivot of the Philippine economy to China would have taken place, they believed.
What the Filipino people were concerned about, and what they were anxious to see, was the effect of the announced pivot to China on this country’s military and security arrangements with the US After all, geopolitical considerations figure very highly when a country enters into bilateral security arrangements with another country and when it terminates such arrangements. What would the pivot to China mean for Philippine-American security arrangements, they were anxious to know. Would a pivot to China mean the abrogation of the Mutual Defense Treaty of 1951 and the more recent EDCA (Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement)?
In reality, the Filipino people need not have been anxious. One does not know what Rodrigo Duterte’s advisers told him about the feasibility and impact of a military pivot to China: the fact of the matter is that such a pivot would never have happened. It was a non-starter.
A military pivot to China – or to any geopolitically suspect country, for that matter – requires the acceptance by the leadership, especially by the middle officer ranks, of the pivoting country’s military establishment.
Quite apart from the latent antipathy of the personnel of the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) to the People’s Republic of China, Filipino soldiers have long historical and professional – even cultural – ties to the US military. The Philippine military’s weaponry – its land, maritime and air assets – are of American origin, training manuals are American – generated, and most AFP officers who train abroad receive their training at US military colleges. Like it or not, the culture of the Philippine military establishment is US-oriented.
A military pivot to China? Rodrigo Duterte would not have been able to pull that off. Neither will a succeeding President in the foreseeable future.