President Duterte’s visit to China last week to pursue a Beijing-leaning diplomacy tack under the guise of an independent foreign policy was a combination of success and failure, or at the least, a frustrating exercise, depending on where one sits.
For the country’s captains of the industry and those in the economic sector, Mr. Duterte’s cozying up with Chinese communist officials where he kowtowed the country before them was an enormous success. For those in the security sector, however, the visit was a total failure.
While the President brought home more than $24 billion worth of trade and investments and loans, the Commander in Chief may have left or deliberately skipped the issue of the Philippines-China relations, which at its crux, is the standing claim for the West Philippine Sea (WPS).
Before he embarked on his drooling visit to Beijing, the defense and military establishments were raising high hopes that President Duterte, a known socialist centrist, would raise China’s occupations of the WPS, and its actions, in the aftermath of the ruling of the United Nations Permanent Court of Arbitration.
A soldier earlier stressed that, “More than any other issue, we would like the President to raise matters involving our territory that China has occupied, and what would be the response of Chinese officials?”
“The West Philippine Sea is an issue of national interest; it sits at the core of our country’s defense and security,” the soldier added.
It was a hope that turned into wishful thinking, however.
On the eve of his China sojourn, Mr. Duterte said he might ask China to at least allow Filipino fishermen to fish at the Scarborough Shoal, although most Filipinos and even the Armed Forces, wanted the President to tackle the territorial issue in its totality.
Soon, however, a contradictory rhetoric was issued by Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto R. Yasay Jr., saying the issue would not be raised.
Yasay’s position was a push button for President Duterte, who said later while in the middle of his visit, that he would not discuss it, relegating the issue to a more propitious time in the future where both countries can discuss the matter.
What makes it worse is when the President intoned before China’s highest officials that the decision of the Arbitral Tribunal, which declared both the de-facto control of the Scarborough Shoal and the denial of Filipino fishermen’s access to the shoal that often goes with finishing touches of attack by China was “just a piece of paper.”
Rather than raising the issue, which occupies the country’s core of national interest since it involves sovereignty and independence, Mr. Duterte pushed for a one-sided relations rather than an independent foreign policy by tolerating Beijing over the WPS issue.
China has maintained that the WPS forms part of its “historic and sovereign territory” and will do everything to defend it. With this stance, there could have been no proper time in clarifying this position than President Duterte’s elbowing with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
While savoring his time with Xi, he should have asked his counterpart what China will do in response to the Arbitral ruling. And will it leave the WPS and the Scarborough Shoal and mind the Filipino fishermen to do their own business?
In calling the UN body’s decision just a piece of paper, Mr. Duterte—as a learning, but indecisive diplomat—completely turned away from his wails of respect, not only from the United States, but from the international community while sulking the territorial dispute to its lowest and returning it to square one.
As observers noted, in the end and with President Duterte, China got it wanted over the issue of the maritime dispute.