All of us have the desire to feel important, if not actually be important. There is nothing wrong with that, as long as we are realistic in our expectations of where we fit in the great scheme of the universe. The same is true of countries.
There is no question that, in large part, due to President Duterte—for good or not—world consciousness has been raised about these 7,000 rocks sticking out of the Philippine Sea Tectonic Plate. However, in the larger scheme of things, the Philippines is nothing more than a pimple on the bottom of the world.
Of course, we hang on every incident that happens in the country as we should. From the alleged sex tape to our foreign relations, everything is high drama in large measure colored with politics. But it is just fine because that is part of Filipino culture and society. Many things are spoken about in too loud a voice with a bit of overacting thrown in for dramatic effect.
The problem in taking yourself too seriously—whether an individual or a nation—is that you may lose sight of the big picture and we are all part of that bigger picture.
The situation in the West Philippine Sea and our relations with China are great topics for discussion and they should be. While President Duterte seeks greater flexibility in Philippine foreign relations, others demand the status quo of focusing primarily, if not only on the United States. However, the world is not black-and-white and everything is interconnected. Some would like to think that this is a China-US issue. But a more realistic and greater concern should be China/Japan.
The US has not fired water cannons at a sovereign vessel of any country in the region. Both China and Japan have done so at each other. These two nations are in reality longtime bitter enemies. In AD 663 the Battle of Baekgang took place, the first Chinese-Japanese conflict in recorded history.
The question, therefore, may be not Philippine-US relations, but how do we balance our large and greatly important economic relations with Japan against the need to figure things out with China? Further, how does the Philippines accomplish this without the US making the decisions that might not be in
our best interest?
Regionally, though, the Philippines could increasingly become an important player. Southeast Asia holds nearly 1 billion people and has the highest economic growth of any region in the world with no reason to believe that fact will change any time soon.
In 2015 China had $11 billion of foreign direct investment (FDI) to the Asean countries, including $1 billion to Vietnam.
The US, on the other hand $13 billion in FDI. But China put $1.3 billion into manufacturing against the US’s $51 million. Further, US investment also included $3 billion buying ownership of local companies, not “new”
investment.
These are serious times that call for serious reflection. We need to keep focus on what is important and what is not important for the nation.
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