Duterte’s Double-Edged Sword Diplomacy

Photo from South China Morning Post

By Chester B Cabalza

Blogger's Notes:
Commentary of an Academic 
(Copyright @ 2019 by Chester B Cabalza. All Rights Reserved).

Rodrigo Duterte, the first Philippine president from Mindanao, has recently staged a climactic tribute mission to Beijing to discuss the volatile sea row and harvest unfulfilled economic pledges from China. Taking a bolder step in the negotiating table to Asia’s most powerful country, he elevates the Philippines’ national interests over sovereignty rights and maintaining peaceful regional security architecture emanating from his promises to the Filipino people since his election in 2016.

His fifth visit to Beijing bears a critical success in managing risk assessment and treatment to the escalating global insecurity affecting the South China Sea (SCS) including the proliferation of trade war between the United States and China. Understandably, the ultimate goal of China reflects the goals of the Communist Party of China (CPC), declaring the SCS as a core interest which may become a prerogative of the CPC. Hence, the survival of the regime is premised on the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) strengths and capability to consolidate and unify China’s lost territories.

In October 2016, Chinese president Xi Jinping initially rolled out his red carpet to Southeast Asia’s strongman. Duterte’s state visit pompously tested the waters of friendship and repaired the broken lines held two months after the Philippines won the arbitral award spelling out China’s excessive maritime entitlements and violations on sovereign rights in the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) of the Philippines.

China responded aggressively by militarizing the artificial islands that the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) built in order to strengthen China’s anti access and area denial (A2/AD) capabilities that would limit the strategic capabilities of the United States including other Southeast Asian claimant-countries to deter future offensive actions. Intermittent aggressions of continental China to archipelagic Philippines spurred through constant close-in air and sea surveillance and reconnaissance to unveil its own strategic ambiguity and gray zone strategy. The ambiguity on how Beijing is communicating the issue on its forceful defense of the SCS is a core national interest that is seen risky by the international community. Thus, the strategic ambiguity intends to induce uncertainties that will affect the decision making process of another white elephant in the room which is the US foreign affairs with the Philippines.

On the other hand, it also allowed the former Davao City mayor to loosen up on Beijing by accommodating a paradigm shift and preferential treatment for Chinese plane seen in the country’s largest city in June 2018. The recurrent passage of foreign ships through Philippines’ territorial waters without securing a clearance from Philippine government became problematic recently. But critics blamed Manila’s policy of silence on asserting the arbitral award while Duterte seems to temporarily refrain from opposing on Chinese belligerence by resorting to economic and diplomatic rapprochements at the strategic level while the Philippines aspires for a robust defense posture by hedging to opposing regional rivals, China and the United States, setting a strategic acquiescence of economic gains and simultaneous military buildup.

In sum, the use of dashes and not solid lines illustrate the compromises that may be accommodated in the future. Two strengths of China’s flexing of muscle specify the militarization of occupied features in the SCS and the modernization of the PLA and its maritime forces. Apparently, China has invested heavily in technology development as a primary driver of China’s de facto control of the contested waters.

Duterte’s annual visits to the Middle Kingdom recreates the infancy of the Philippines and China diplomatic relations that paved way in 1417 when a Sulu royalty from Mindanao, Paduka Batara, also known as the “eastern king” sailed to Hangzhou for bridging diplomacy to Ming dynasty’s Emperor Yongle. The emperor was responsible in transferring the seat of power to Beijing, where the Filipino and Chinese monarchs met. During Yongle’s reign, he marvelously built the Forbidden City, amidst the dynasty’s maritime expansion while consolidating China’s hard power.

The machination of economic security bolstered Beijing and Manila’s warming relationship  for almost four years since the two prominent Asian leaders inked a strategic partnership paving a way for China’s growing regional centrality in the Indo-Pacific and solving China’s Malacca dilemma on its economic efforts to tame Southeast Asian neighbors. The Philippine president recognized China’s Belt Road Initiatives (BRI) by solidly supporting it to finance his ‘Build, Build, Build’ infrastructure programs, apparently shown through his annual participation to the Belt Road Forums (BRF) in different cities of China since 2017 to this year.

The two populist and strongmen opted to foster a strategic partnership to slow down coercing activities; however, there are a number of high and low armed conflicts in the contested SCS that raised the bar of Chinese dominance. The June 2019 ramming incident of Chinese militia to a Philippine fishing vessel in the oil-rich Reed Bank in the Spratlys archipelago within the Philippines’ EEZ had outwitted Manila’s soft power and the use of legal means. Only in November 2017 when the two countries permitted a framework for joint exploration undersea through a Mutual of Understanding (MOU) on Energy Cooperation thereby suggesting a majority of share to the Philippines.

Lastly, Duterte’s longest state visit yet to Beijing has tested his maturing diplomatic and trading skills in dealing with the erudite President Xi to prove to the Filipino people that China can also become a true friend of the Philippines. Moving forward, Xi’s past visit to Manila laid down the controversial MOU on Energy Cooperation as a roadmap for the joint oil and gas exploration of the two countries amidst solving their differences in disputed Reed Bank. Meanwhile, Duterte’s current visit to Beijing allows the next step for a possible Terms of Reference (TOR) for proper implementation of the megaproject. Hence, the arbitral ruling and joint exploration may reach an end result of successful risk management to safeguard maritime rights and economic interests to realize a matured cooperation with the acceleration of the Code of Conduct (CoC) in the SCS.