Fourteen months into the term of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., we are discovering that the future of the Philippines has profound implications for the region and the United States. The transformation of the Philippines into an increasingly active middle power under the young Marcos may make or break the peace in the South China Sea.
during his inaugural address Last year, Marcos pledged to unite all 110 million Filipinos to “get the country” they deserve. Beneath his humble countenance, he barely concealed an ambition to restore his family name. The Marcos brand was very tarnished afterwards “People Power” he banished his father from Malacañang Palace in 1986. Still, Marcos Jr. highlighted the first day: “I’m not here to talk about our past. I am here to tell you about our future.”
What has occurred since June 30, 2022 is nothing short of a renaissance in US-Philippines relations. Former President Rodrigo Duterte’s threats to the alliance were often laced with brag. Still, it’s hard to disagree with the characterization that the Philippines under Marcos is the country of the United States. “New Allied Star”. Even so, it would be a mistake to assume that Marcos puts the national interest of the United States before that of his country.
Marcos is reviewing the Philippine strategy. In early August, he approved a new national security framework focused on the “main” objectives of “national sovereignty, territorial integrity, national interest and the right to self-determination.” Although Executive Order No. 37 is cryptic, the new policy replaces a long-standing national security fixation on ground-based counterinsurgency and counterterrorism with a primary focus on protecting maritime sovereignty in the West Philippine Sea and stability across the Taiwan Strait.
The pivot was announced days after the The Chinese Coast Guard used water cannons to prevent civilian vessels chartered by the Philippine Navy from conducting a routine resupply mission to Second Thomas Shoal. Beijing has been using a variety of gray area tactics to obstruct and harass the Philippines as it seeks to preserve the rusting hull of the BRP Sierra Madre, a World War II landing ship deliberately run aground in 1999 to create a Spratly-like outpost. what China had developed on the nearby Mischief Reef.
Manila’s strategic shift is as significant as any in the region since Japan quietly began to reorient its stance with the liberation of the December 2010 National Defense Program Guidelines. That document, which followed a september incident in which a Chinese fishing boat rammed two Japan Coast Guard ships near the Senkaku Islands (claimed by China as the Diaoyu Islands), reversed the Cold War-era Self-Defense Forces’ priority of defending Hokkaido and raised the task of protecting the Southwestern Islands (the nansei shoto). More will become clear towards the end of the year, by which time Philippine officials are expected to finalize a new national security strategy.
Is Marcos at risk of being drawn into a rivalry between China and the United States that could lead to a major regional conflict? Although China is more likely to pull the trigger on Taiwan than disputes in the East or South China Sea, the entire maritime theater is drifting towards what could become an integrated air and sea battlefield.
Like Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio, Marcos wants to avoid conflict. His revitalization of defense ties with the United States is a means of keeping conflict at bay, not starting it. But it is more than that. In addition to helping rehabilitate the family’s reputation, Marcos appreciates the influence of working with the US defense forces.
Accept new database access sites off the South China Sea and conducting muscular military exercises are just two of the ways Marcos has tried to polish the alliance. The Biden administration has strongly reciprocated joint action statements and strong statements about invoking the Mutual Defense Treaty in case any Philippine ship or plane is threatened.
Indeed, these are heady days for bilateral defense cooperation. But this is also a storied relationship that has had its fair share of ups and downs. The Philippines forced the closure of US bases in 1992, after which China seized the opportunity to seize Mischief Reef. The United States also failed to prevent China from seizing scarborough bank after a tense standoff with the Philippines in 2012. That failure is what prompted Manila to turn to the Permanent Court of Arbitration to clear up China’s excessive claims, especially those “nine dash line” claim most of the South China Sea. But while that icy legal process ended with a legal validation of Manila’s arguments, China hastened a massive land reclamation and fortified outpost construction project in the Spratlys.
On commemorating the seventh anniversary of the arbitral award in favor of the Philippines, Foreign Minister Enrique Manalo spoke about it “an established landmark of international law.” China strongly disputes it and continues to delegitimize the 2016 ruling. During a brief public session of a recent Dialogue on the governance of the South China SeaProfessor Sienho Yee of the China Foreign Affairs University offered a dubious litany of historical and legal arguments in defense of Beijing’s radical politics. “undisputed sovereignty” claims.
While stressing the rule of law, the Marcos administration is speaking out. This is noteworthy in Southeast Asia, where foreign policy is typically conducted “ASEAN-style”, in which confrontation is avoided through consensus-oriented diplomacy. Facing a great power like China requires courage. If the US backs him, of course, Marcos has some cover. But that could change if a future president defines America’s national interests more strictly.
The point is that Marcos’ calculation is based more on interests than on values. While Filipinos have a lot in common with Americans, the calculation of decision-making in Manila is not sentimental. Unlike South Korea, which under President Yoon Suk-yeol has adopted a “values-based” approach to the alliance, Marcos does not hesitate to look out for the Philippines.
“There is no right or wrong,” a young analyst from a neighboring Southeast Asian state told me during my recent visit to Manila, “there is only the national interest.” That down-to-earth sentiment captures both the logic of why smaller ASEAN states remain silent in the face of Chinese assertiveness and why Marcos is taking a tougher stance in the South China Sea.
Marcos’s strategy is not to declare that China is bad and the United States is good, but to defend the sovereignty of the Philippines. A solid alliance with the United States, supporting Joint patrols in the South China Sea with other countries and increase defense spending are critical in helping Manila protect its maritime claims. But diplomacy remains the key to the Manila approach.
Manila understands Xi Jinping’s gradualist approach to controlling the South China Sea. Unlike other ASEAN member states (except Vietnam), Marcos is outspoken about Chinese coercion and dissimulation. But he also doesn’t assume that the United States will always have his back. As he told his inaugural audience: “We can’t trust anyone else when it comes to what’s best for us. Past history has often shown it.”
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