MANILA – “China-Philippines relations are at a crossroads. Faced with the choice of where to go, the Philippines must act with caution,” warned Wang Yi, China’s top diplomat during a recent testy conversation with his Filipino counterpart, Enrique Manalo.
According to a readout of the exchange, China squarely blamed the Southeast Asian nation for rising tensions by claiming that the “root cause is that the Philippines has changed its longstanding policy stance, reneged on its own commitments, continued to provoke and stir trouble at sea, and undermined China’s legal rights.”
For the Philippines, however, it’s China that is provoking tensions by bullying smaller rival claimants. Over the past six months, the Philippines and China have been involved in multiple incidents in the disputed waters, raising fears of armed conflict in the vital international waterway.
Chinese maritime forces have repeatedly swarmed and, at times, even water cannoned Philippine resupply missions to the hotly-disputed Second Thomas Shoal, which hosts a small detachment of Filipino marines.
Beijing has warned of potential military intervention should Manila press ahead with fortifying the BRP Sierra Madre, the grounded vessel that precariously serves as a de facto military base in the maritime area.
Frustrated by the “poor direction” of bilateral relations and anxious about unwanted clashes in the South China Sea, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has gone for nothing less than a “paradigm shift” in his country’s foreign policy.
Though scant on details, the Filipino president, fresh from a fruitful visit to Tokyo, underscored the need for the Philippines to do what “we have not done before” and consider new measures to “move the needle” to Manila’s benefit.
By all indications, Marcos Jr is expected to adopt an increasingly assertive stance in the South China Sea in tandem with key Western allies and, if current trends persist, even reconsider his generally conciliatory rhetoric towards the Asian superpower.
Like father, like son
Few saw this shift coming under the Philippine leader. Before becoming the Philippines’ 17th president, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr was largely dismissed as a wimp, including by his predecessor.
Rodrigo Duterte once described him as a “spoiled brat” and a “weak leader.” Even his own late father, the former Filipino dictator, worried that his son might end up a “spoiled and hated” princeling.
Just as worrying was Marcos Jr’s policy positioning during his election campaign. He publicly backed full continuity with his pro-Beijing predecessor, adamantly arguing, “The policy of engagement, which the Duterte government is implementing, although it is criticized, it is the right way to go.”
At times, he even sounded defeatist: “[W]hatever we do, we can’t go to war… we don’t want to go to war with China.”
Historically, the Marcoses have had intimate relations with China. As a princeling, Marcos Jr had accompanied his parents during a series of visits in the mid-1970s to Maoist China to normalize relations.
Even after their fall from power, the Marcoses maintained warm ties with Beijing via close diplomatic and commercial linkages in their bailiwick, the northern province of Ilocos Norte.
Ahead of his election, Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Huang Xilian met then-candidate Marcos Jr and publicly fawned over Beijing’s longtime friendship with the notorious political dynasty.
Once elected to office, however, Marcos Jr began to sing to a different tune. For starters, he walked back his earlier promise to hand a key cabinet position to his running mate, Sara Duterte. Instead, Marcos Jr reserved the defense and foreign policy portfolios for veterans with largely US-friendly predispositions.
Moreover, Marcos Jr adopted a far more uncompromising position on the South China Sea disputes. He made it clear he “will not compromise it in any way,” calling the country’s sovereign rights in the area “sacred.”
Crucially, he also reiterated the finality of the 2016 South China Sea arbitral tribunal ruling under the aegis of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which rejected China’s expansive “nine-dash line” claims in the area.
Three main factors explain this seeming radical reorientation in Marcos Jr’s foreign policy. First, he was simply responding to public opinion, namely widespread anti-China sentiments in the Philippines, as well as the sentiment of the Philippines’ China-skeptic defense establishment.
Second, Marcos Jr. was also reacting to incentives offered by the superpowers. While the Joe Biden administration went the extra mile to win over the Filipino president, even reassuring him of his “sovereign immunity” from pending court cases in the US, China, in stark contrast, refused to offer any real concessions either in the South China Sea or over largely unfulfilled infrastructure investment pledges.
Position of strength
Perhaps the most underappreciated factor, however, is the legacy of Marcos Sr, who left a deep impression on his namesake son. At the height of the Cold War period, the former Filipino president fortified defense ties with the US even as he reached out to both Beijing and Moscow.
Crucially, Marcos Sr pressed ahead, in defiance of Washington, with an aggressive policy in the South China Sea, which culminated in the establishment of Philippine military bases in disputed features, most notably an airstrip in the Thitu Island.
“[W]e have been doing this for many years now, with very little progress,” Marcos Jr lamented during a recent press briefing, referring to the futility of bilateral dialogue with China.
“We have to do something [that] we have not done before. We have to come up with a new concept, a new principle, a new idea so that we move, as I say, we move the needle the other way,” he added, emphasizing the need for a “paradigm shift” in Philippine foreign policy.
It’s unclear what the Filipino president actually has in mind, or whether his administration has crafted a precise policy framework. What’s clear, however, is that Marcos Jr is intent on carving his own place in history by adopting a proactive and multilateral policy of resistance against China in the disputed waters.
For the Filipino president, it is important that the country operates from a position of relative strength. Accordingly, he has not only greenlighted expanded military cooperation with traditional allies, most notably by expanding the parameters of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), but has also doubled down on asserting Philippine sovereign rights in the disputed waters.
The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG), now equipped with among the most modern vessels among all Southeast Asian counterparts, has been empowered to adopt a proactive “transparency initiative”, namely by exposing China’s intimidation tactics and harassment of rivals in the disputed waters.
The Philippine Navy, meanwhile, has stepped up its resupply missions to the Second Thomas Shoal, in tandem with PCG, and is set to fortify the country’s facilities across disputed features.
Recently, the Philippine military inaugurated a two-story facility, which boasts “advanced systems” including radars and satellite communication equipment in the Thitu Island, the second-largest naturally-formed land feature in the disputed Spratlys. This has gone hand in hand with the acquisition of increasingly sophisticated assets, including a Japanese-built air surveillance radar system.
The Philippine military is also set to fortify and likely transform the dilapidated Sierra Madre vessel into a more stable and robust military facility in the Second Thomas Shoal. To minimize Philippine vulnerability, Marcos Jr is also reconsidering the country’s participation in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects altogether.
Marcos Jr’s ultimate card, however, is the Philippines’ sprawling security partnership with like-minded powers. Most crucially, the Filipino president will likely consider granting the US Pentagon expanded access to key bases in the Philippines, including those close to Taiwan, as well as finalizing new visiting forces agreement-style deals with other Indo-Pacific powers such as Japan and France.
This would likely go hand in hand with expanded joint patrols and military drills with a whole host of new and traditional allies in order to keep China’s sea ambitions in check. After more than a year of conciliatory rhetoric, Marcos Jr is signaling his willingness to both carry a bigger stick and talk a tad tougher against China’s perceived creeping invasion of Philippine waters.
Follow Richard Javad Heydarian on X, formerly Twitter, at @Richeydarian
