Lord Palmerston said: “Nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests.” This is particularly true for the Philippines, whose President Rodrigo Duterte shocked the world when last week he announced his intention to break strategic and economic ties with the US and form an alliance with China.
While Duterte has a tendency to make outrageous public statements that he later retracts, his actions manifest a nationalist sentiment among Philippine elites and represents a new attempt to pursue an independent foreign policy.
This fiasco caused a great deal of confusion in Washington, Manila and other East Asian capitals. First, Duterte’s announcement came as a significant victory for China on the eve of the 80th anniversary of the Chinese Red Army’s Long March — a series of military retreats by Chinese Communists to evade the hostile pursuit of Chinese Nationalist soldiers during the early 1930s.
A week ago, Beijing was still coming to grips with the aftermath of diplomatic setbacks like South Korea’s deployment of the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense anti-missile system against North Korea and the July ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, the Netherlands, that rebuked China’s historic claims over the South China Sea. Duterte’s rapprochement has re-energized Beijing’s ongoing efforts to lay claim to and militarize the area.
Second, Duterte completely reversed former Philippine president Benigno Aquino III’s tough stand on maritime sovereignty issues. When The Hague urged Beijing to suspend further expansion into the Philippines’ proclaimed territories, the Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島) and Mischief Reef (Meiji Reef, 美濟礁), it was a legal victory for Manila. For months, Beijing has been contemplating whether to withdraw from the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea or to adhere to international law and reconcile with the Philippines.
When Duterte publicly acknowledged Beijing’s claims to maritime resources in the South China Sea in exchange for US$24 billion in Chinese investment and loan pledges, he gave China a face-saving platform to escape the legal crisis.
Third, some officials in the West have been frustrated by Duterte’s adventurism, seeing him as a wild card and have demonized him as “a [North Korean Leader} Kim Jong-un, minus the nukes.”
Whether Duterte is playing China against the US and Japan to extract further gains remains to be seen.
Politically savvy and pragmatic, Duterte understands that Washington has little room to maneuver. If it sets out to downgrade ties with Manila in retaliation, it gives Duterte a reason to reassess the mutual defense treaty of 1951 and prompt fresh anxieties for Tokyo, Seoul and other nations about their strategic agreements with the US.
As Washington has been strengthening ties with traditional allies in the Asia-Pacific, many Asian nations are seizing the opportunity to reset their own diplomatic and developmental agendas in a highly fluid landscape of geopolitics. Duterte’s Philippines is no exception. This regional rebalancing could prompt the next US president to rethink the East Asian strategy and identify new partners.
In this regard, Taiwan might want to reprioritize its “new southbound policy” from an economic to a geopolitical strategy. Besides looking for business opportunities, Taiwan should position itself as a new stabilizing force and support US allies in creating a multilateral platform to address maritime sovereignty disputes. Only by doing so can Taiwan effectively respond to China’s renewed international campaign to isolate the nation.
Joseph Tse-hei Lee is professor of history at Pace University in New York.
A return to power for former US president Donald Trump would pose grave risks to Taiwan’s security, autonomy and the broader stability of the Indo-Pacific region. The stakes have never been higher as China aggressively escalates its pressure on Taiwan, deploying economic, military and psychological tactics aimed at subjugating the nation under Beijing’s control. The US has long acted as Taiwan’s foremost security partner, a bulwark against Chinese expansionism in the region. However, a second Trump presidency could upend decades of US commitments, introducing unpredictability that could embolden Beijing and severely compromise Taiwan’s position. While president, Trump’s foreign policy reflected a transactional
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) has prioritized modernizing the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to rival the US military, with many experts believing he would not act on Taiwan until the PLA is fully prepared to confront US forces. At the Chinese Communist Party’s 20th Party Congress in 2022, Xi emphasized accelerating this modernization, setting 2027 — the PLA’s centennial — as the new target, replacing the previous 2035 goal. US intelligence agencies said that Xi has directed the PLA to be ready for a potential invasion of Taiwan by 2027, although no decision on launching an attack had been made. Whether
A chip made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) was found on a Huawei Technologies Co artificial intelligence (AI) processor, indicating a possible breach of US export restrictions that have been in place since 2019 on sensitive tech to the Chinese firm and others. The incident has triggered significant concern in the IT industry, as it appears that proxy buyers are acting on behalf of restricted Chinese companies to bypass the US rules, which are intended to protect its national security. Canada-based research firm TechInsights conducted a die analysis of the Huawei Ascend 910B AI Trainer, releasing its findings on Oct.
In honor of President Jimmy Carter’s 100th birthday, my longtime friend and colleague John Tkacik wrote an excellent op-ed reassessing Carter’s derecognition of Taipei. But I would like to add my own thoughts on this often-misunderstood president. During Carter’s single term as president of the United States from 1977 to 1981, despite numerous foreign policy and domestic challenges, he is widely recognized for brokering the historic 1978 Camp David Accords that ended the state of war between Egypt and Israel after more than three decades of hostilities. It is considered one of the most significant diplomatic achievements of the 20th century.
RSS