Duterte bids goodbye to Washington
‘Separation from US’ causes confusion
MANILA: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said he wants to cut the cord with the US and pivot to China and Russia, words that signal a deepening split with his country’s biggest military ally and that have prompted bafflement in Washington.
Mr Duterte made the pronouncement on Thursday during a state visit to Beijing, several weeks after he told President Barack Obama to “go to hell”. Since taking office in June, the brash 71-year-old leader has repeatedly questioned his nation’s links with the US while touting the economic benefits of closer ties with China.
“I announce my separation from the US,” Mr Duterte said to a packed room of business leaders in the Chinese capital after meeting with President Xi Jinping. Mr Duterte also said he might go to Russian President Vladimir Putin and tell him: “There’s three of us against the world.”
But yesterday, Trade Minister Ramon Lopez said the Philippines will maintain its trade and economic ties with the US as he sought to clarify Mr Duterte’s comments.
“The president did not talk about separation,” Mr Lopez told CNN Philippines. “In terms of economic [ties], we are not stopping trade, investment with America. The president specifically mentioned his desire to strengthen further the ties with China and the Asean region which we have been trading with for centuries.”
He said the Philippines was “breaking being too much dependent on one side”. “But we definitely won’t stop the trade and investment activities with the West, specifically the US.”
The comments marked Mr Duterte’s strongest yet in disparaging an alliance that has underpinned the US’ Asia-Pacific strategy since World War II. Yet it remains to be seen whether he will follow through with actions such as jointly exploring for energy with Beijing in disputed waters or tearing up defence agreements that give the US access to bases in the Philippines. The US has strong ties with the Philippine defence establishment and many of the nation’s citizens say they trust the US more than China by a wide margin.
“Symbolically none of this is good for the US but in concrete terms the US has thick skin,” said Malcolm Cook, a senior fellow at the Iseas-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore. “If the Duterte government starts to restrict US access to Philippine bases or something like that, then the US will have a problem.”
State Department spokesman John Kirby described the US as “baffled” by Mr Duterte’s rhetoric and will seek an explanation when Daniel Russel, assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific, visits the Philippines this weekend.
Mr Duterte’s comments are “inexplicably at odds with the very close relationship that we have with the Filipino people, as well as the government there, on many different levels, not just from a security perspective,” Mr Kirby said on Thursday. The US remains committed to the two countries’ mutual defence treaty, he said.
While Mr Duterte’s cabinet members often seek to tone down his remarks — a routine they followed again on Thursday — the president has kept repeating them. In his speech to the Chinese business leaders, Mr Duterte said that the separation from the US would be both military and economic, without elaborating. He’s also mulling plans to require US visitors to the Philippines to obtain a visa.
In a joint statement issued after Mr Duterte’s speech, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez and Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia said the Philippine Cabinet would move strongly and swiftly toward regional economic integration.
“We will maintain relations with the West, but we desire stronger integration with our neighbours,” the statement said. Overseas investors, however, appear to have been unsettled by the mixed messages. The peso dropped to the weakest in seven years this month as US$666 million fled from the nation’s local-currency stocks and bonds since Aug 1.
Earlier on Thursday, China announced a resumption of bilateral talks on contested territory in the South China Sea, an issue that had previously pushed the Philippines closer to the US. China’s Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs Liu Zhenmin hailed a “new stage of maritime cooperation”.
“It’s a win-win for both,” said Kang Lin, deputy director of the National Institute for South China Sea Studies, China’s only state-backed research institution dedicated to South China Sea research.
“The Philippines can reap a commercial harvest from his trip, including much needed infrastructure funding. And for China, it’s the temporary end of the South China Sea migraine that lasted for the past couple of years.”
Mr Duterte will travel next week to Japan, where government officials declined to comment on his statements in Beijing.
“We want to take this opportunity to develop our strategic partnership even further,” Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters yesterday.
“The South China Sea problem is one that directly affects the peace and stability of the region and is a matter of international interest, including to our country. We will continue to uphold the rule of law and to strengthen cooperation with the countries involved.”
Philippine and Chinese officials signed 13 pacts on areas including trade, investment and tourism. Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez told reporters in Beijing yesterday Mr Duterte’s visit to China will yield $24 billion in government and business deals, including $15 billion in investments and $9 billion worth of loan facilities. He said the Philippines will maximise the Chinaled Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank as a funding source for projects.
Despite his remarks, Mr Duterte still has yet to commit to anything that may permanently undermine the long-standing alliance between the US and the Philippines. He hasn’t discarded any agreements, conceded that China has sovereignty in disputed waters or undermined the right of the US to conduct military operations in the South China Sea.
“The ‘yet’ is a very big ‘yet’,” said Malcolm Davis, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra. “At a certain point, if Duterte wants to reap the economic benefits from his visit to China he will need to pay the piper. He will need to do what he is saying, otherwise he won’t get anything from China.”