It’s been a rough and tumble ride for Philippines watchers since the tough-talking Rodrigo R. Duterte was sworn in as the country’s president on June 30.
In his first three months in office, the former Davao City mayor has made good on his key pledge to declare a war on drugs. According to police data released last week, the fight has claimed the lives of as many as 3,700 suspected drug pushers and users since July 1, including 1,573 people who have died in police
operations.
Angered by international criticism of alleged extrajudicial killings, President Duterte, 71, flashed his middle finger at the European Union and told United States President Barack Obama he can “go to hell.”
The spat has also driven him to seek a closer relationship with China, raising questions about his commitment to the Philippines’s long-standing military alliance with the US.
The negative attention has unsettled overseas investors. Since the end of July, foreigners have withdrawn $388.36 million from Philippine stocks, while the peso has lost about 3 percent against the dollar—among Asia’s worst-performing currencies in that time.
Starting on Tuesday, Mr. Duterte leads more than 400 business leaders, including some of the Philippines’s wealthiest tycoons on a four-day visit to Beijing. He’s looking for a much-needed boost for infrastructure investment as the first Philippine leader invited to the capital by Chinese President Xi Jinping for
one-on-one talks.
The visit by the recently elected President Duterte, who was due to arrive in Beijing later in the day, will be a step toward ending years of estrangement between the countries, Xinhua News Agency said.
“Should he demonstrate his good faith, the trip will present a long overdue opportunity for the two nations, which enjoy longstanding friendship, to heal the wounds of the past few years and steer their relationship back to the right course,” Xinhua said in a commentary.
Mr. Duterte’s visit will help define how far he wants to shift allegiance from the United States to an Asian superpower locked in a territorial standoff with his small, impoverished country, and the Philippines’s 65-year alliance with the US—a key pillar of Obama’s rebalance to Asia—could hang in the balance.
The Xinhua editorial signals how China hopes to use the visit to regain lost ground in a Southeast Asian nation that won a major arbitration lawsuit against Beijing’s massive territorial claims in the South China Sea just three months ago.
China refused to take part in the litigation or accept the ruling, which said China’s historical claim to virtually the entire strategic waterbody wasn’t supported by international law.
“The verdict issued by a law-abusing tribunal has no place in the negotiations at all,” Xinhua said.
President Duterte is scheduled to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and other officials on Thursday. The Philippine draft of a proposed joint statement touches on the restoration of permits for Filipino agricultural exports, China’s support for Mr. Duterte’s campaign against illegal drugs, boosting tourism and enhancing Coast Guard cooperation to avoid misunderstandings at sea.
Details are still being worked out, officials say, and it remains unclear whether the thorny issue of the South China Sea territorial disputes will be reflected in the statement.
China was to offer “assistance in personnel training and donation of equipment to aid in the fight against illegal drugs,” according to the Philippine draft seen by The Associated Press.
President Duterte’s deadly battle against drug dealers and abusers has been a defining issue of his political career, prompting him to lash out at Obama and other foreign critics and further propelling him toward rapprochement with an uncritical Beijing.
Bloomberg News, AP