To avoid war, scrap the Mutual Defense Treaty

That’s really the question for the Philippines as it reviews its 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) with the United States, now escalating its confrontation with China.

The MDT commits both sides to respond to an attack on the ally’s main territory or its armed forces. That’s why when President-elect Rodrigo Duterte asked then US Ambassador Philip Goldberg if America would come to the Philippines’ aid in a territorial tussle with China, Goldberg replied: “Only if you are attacked.”

That didn’t impress Duterte. What kind of protection does the treaty afford, if one has to actually get bloodied by the most powerful military in Asia before America helps out? And it’s not even clear what US forces would do, since the pact does not afford instant retaliation, unlike the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) accord between America and its European allies.

Treaty proponents argue that those issues can be ironed out in the MDT review, with a team of US

the pact. In fact, the whole idea of being an ally of a major power now escalating its confrontation with China deserves serious rethinking.

and America over Taiwan, Korea, or the Senkaku/ Diaoyutai islands disputed by Beijing and Tokyo, does the Philippines really want to get sucked into that firefight among nucleararmed superpowers?

Since the MDT commits the Philippines to respond if American forces are attacked in the

alongside the US, even if we don’t want to get involved in a conflict over Taiwan, Korea or the Senkakus.

Recently, presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo said the Philippines was neutral over China’s goal to reunify with Taiwan, by force if necessary. Well, if the US makes good on its commitment to defend the island from Chinese invasion, under the MDT, the Philippines would end up taking America’s side in the ensuing war.

to target Philippine forces and military facilities in an ongoing

Actually, such targeting may have started with the opening last month of Cesar Basa Air Base in Pampanga to American forces.

New bases for Uncle Sam

Inaugurated by Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana and US Ambassador Sung Kim, the new facility is labeled a “humanitarian assistance and disaster relief” warehouse, with another planned for Puerto Princesa.

For America’s adversaries, however, what’s crucial is that its warplanes can land and take off at the base. That means they can mount attacks from the Philippines.

Along with Pampanga and Palawan, military bases are also offered for US use in Nueva Ecija, Mactan near Cebu, and Cagayan de Oro, under the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), which also allows increased rotations of US forces in the country.

With cruise missiles, US warships and planes in the archipelago can hit most of China and all of the South China Sea, including vital sea lanes where pass. Notably, in a 2016 report funded by the US Army, “War with China: Thinking Through the Unthinkable,” the RAND think-tank urged blocking such energy imports as a war strategy.

Hence, if EDCA is fully implemented, the increased US military deployment and bases access cannot but pose a major threat to China. Indeed, it was the impending escalation of American forces in the country which probably was one big reason for China to build island bases in the Spratlys.

Thankfully, President Duterte stalled the EDCA, easing Beijing’s fears of Washington’s announced plan to move 60 percent of its naval assets to East Asia, which would have been prowling mainly in our island waters, serviced in our ports, and with air support operating from our bases. No other country in Asia would have hosted them.

That may still happen after Duterte steps down in 2022. Hence, just as his rise to power led to the biggest geopolitical shift in the region, with China mending fences with the Philippines, a new Philippine president could rev up the US alliance under EDCA, rekindling tensions and confrontations with China, and bringing the region’s largest militaries staring at each other across the South and East China Seas.

No doubt China would react the same way the US did to Cuba, when the island nearly hosted Soviet nuclear missiles in 1962. Then, Washington used its massive international and economic power to embargo trade, investment, and development aid for Cuba, where the US even maintained a military base.

So, just as Cuba was shut out of the world’s economic engine of the last century, the Philippines could also find itself under economic and diplomatic pressure from China, set to be the largest economy on the planet in this century.

A new Cold War

And the US-China confrontation may go beyond territorial frictions on the high seas or the ongoing trade tensions, with Washington set to impose 25 percent tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese exports to the US. In its 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment report (available at: < https:// www. dni. gov/

SFR--- SSCI. pdf>), Washington’s intelligence agencies declared:

“We assess that China’s leaders will try to extend the country’s global economic, political and military reach while using China’s military capabilities and overseas infrastructure and energy investments under the Belt and Road Initiative to diminish

“Chinese leaders will increasingly seek to assert China’s model of authoritarian capitalism as an alternative — and implicitly superior — development path abroad, exacerbating great- power competition that could threaten international support for democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.”

In short, be ready for a new Cold War between China and America. Now, do we want to be a pawn in that superpower rivalry?

If not, then scrap the Mutual Defense Treaty.

But hang on: How do we defend the Philippines without the MDT?

Let’s talk about that next week.

Ferdinand Sr., who grabbed power to extend his term, declared martial law and became a dictator. While eliciting the wild applause from an obviously partisan section of the live audience which found it pleasurable to watch how Diokno was able to shame Marcos, more so that he also made reference to Marcos’ family his argument actually was a miserable failure in logic.

Diokno practically demolished the logic of his own argument, by showing that term limits are not in fact effective in containing the emergence of a dictatorship. By banking on martial law as the