US-Philippines ties are as strong as they have been in decades, with soldiers from both sides on Friday wrapping up three weeks of joint military exercises that resemble the kind of preparations necessary to help repel a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
Yet in the northern Philippines, near a military base the US recently won access to that is crucial to any defense of Taiwan, Beijing has made inroads with key politicians.
Cagayan Governor Manuel Mamba has traveled to China twice in the past 12 months and has four copies of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) book, The Governance of China.
Photo: AP
“We were VIPS, treated very, very well,” Mamba said of his visits to China.
“We stayed in five-star hotels. We were free to roam around all over, even at night,” he said.
Mamba said he was not “pro-China” even though he has been a vocal critic of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s move last year to give the US access to four more military facilities under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), including two in his province.
“They treat you well if you treat them well — if you go against them, like is happening now, they will not treat you well,” Mamba said about China.
“The problem now is bullying. Remove the EDCA sites, there will be no more bullying,” he said.
Strengthened US-Philippines ties have generated optimism in Washington, where policymakers hope the Southeast Asian nation would become a reliable part of its defense strategy alongside Japan, South Korea and Australia.
However, beneath the surface Washington and Beijing remain locked in a struggle for influence that is still playing out.
While the US has made gains in recent years, Beijing is not giving up.
Former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte was deeply skeptical toward the US and shifted the Philippines closer to China, and politicians like Mamba are worried the nation would be dragged into a war.
“The US-Philippines relationship is the best it’s ever been, but there are questions over whether that can last,” said Brian Harding, a former Pentagon official who is now a Southeast Asia expert at the US Institute for Peace.
“Marcos needs to show that his pro-US push can actually pay off economically for the Philippines,” Harding said.
For now, the US has a lot going for it: Just 10 percent of Philippine citizens said they favor a partnership with China, while 79 percent said they preferred cooperation with the US, a Pulse Asia Research Inc survey in December last year showed.
Pro-US sentiment has risen in recent years, as the Philippines and China have clashed over a series of contested reefs and islands in the South China Sea, where Taiwan also has claims. Those tensions have pushed many Philippine politicians, including Marcos, closer to the US.
“President Marcos is not pro-US and he’s not anti-China — he’s pro-Filipino,” Philippine Secretary of Defense Gilberto Teodoro Jr said in an interview.
“It just so happens that the major challenge to our rights is China,” he said.
That tighter relationship has been most evident on the military side.
The joint ‘Balikatan’ drills saw more than 10,000 troops practice cyberwarfare, live artillery fire and repel an amphibious assault on a beach.
It culminated with the two nations bombarding a decommissioned, Chinese-made oil tanker, sending it to the bottom of the sea.
The decades-old Balikatan, Tagalog for “shoulder-to-shoulder,” exercises have increasingly come to resemble real combat.
They are just one part of what US officials describe as a historic shift in an alliance that helps safeguard a crucial shipping lane in the South China Sea and whose strategic location could prove decisive in a future war over Taiwan.
US officials acknowledge that shoring up the US-Philippine alliance in the long run would require Washington to deliver economic benefits, not just military exercises.
During a recent visit, US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said that US companies are to make investments amounting to more than US$1 billion in the Philippines.
Meanwhile, in the northern Philippines, residents are skeptical of pushing China away.
“The Philippines makes a lot of money from the Chinese people,” said Evangeline Raguindin, a teacher at the Taribubu Elementary School, where a Chinese foundation is paying for new school buildings.
Asked about Manila’s recent territorial clashes with Beijing in the South China Sea, she said: “We’re not affected here.”
Mamba has results to show for his relationships in Beijing.
This year, a new US$73 million irrigation project began pumping water near his hometown of Tuao. Mamba had pursued the project for years.
When funding finally arrived, it came in the form of a loan from the Export-Import Bank of China.
The US is “triggering tensions in the region and jeopardizing regional peace and stability. The Philippine side should recognize the situation clearly and should not sacrifice its own security interests for the sake of others, thereby jeopardizing its own interests,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials said when asked about Mamba’s trip and whether China views the US as an enemy.
Analysts say Beijing’s courting of leaders like Mamba is not a surprise.
“China is good at courting sub-national elites, promising them things, from education opportunities to infrastructure,” said Julio Amador, CEO of Amador Research Services, a political consultancy in Manila.
“These are not necessarily bad in themselves, but it shows that China understands that all politics are local,” Amador said.
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