Atlantic Sentinel

Tag: Philippines

  • Duterte’s Play for a Dictatorship

    When you yearn for a caesar, you more often than not get it. Such now is the price being paid by the people of the Philippines, who swept to power a man whose harsh authoritarianism was clear as day. As the southern island of Mindanao slips into chaos, Rodrigo Duterte’s not-so-subtle desire for absolute power has become all too obvious.

    From Reuters:

    “Anyone now holding a gun, confronting government with violence, my orders are spare no one, let us solve the problems of Mindanao once and for all,” said Duterte, who is from the island, after cutting short a visit to Russia and returning to Manila.

    “If I think you should die, you will die. If you fight us, you will die. If there’s an open defiance, you will die and if it means many people dying, so be it. That’s how it is.” (more…)

  • Duterte Wants to Ditch America for China and Russia. Can They Bite?

    Betteridge’s law of headlines states that any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered no. And so it is with this one, with a strong caveat: at least not now.

    Since election in May, Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines’ “gotta make some murder to stop some murder” president, has grabbed up headlines by getting so tough on crime, crime is shot in the streets and by insulting the American president. Now, and most geopolitically significantly, Mr Duterte has threatened to bring his country into alliances with China and Russia.

    As much of a boon as this would be to the Chinese and Russians, neither can replace the Americans. At least, not right now. (more…)

  • Rodrigo Duterte and the Geopolitics of Insulting the American President

    Barack Obama
    American president Barack Obama talks with his advisors in the Situation Room of the White House in Washington DC, December 5, 2015 (White House/Pete Souza)

    We’ve all had that boss, that teacher, that authority figure whom we insult as soon as their back is turned. We mutter “pig” beneath our breath as the traffic cop walks just out of earshot or WhatsApp some obscenity to describe a boss or teacher who gives us a seemingly unreasonable deadline.

    Should we really think that leaders don’t have the same human impulse?

    Even disciplined leaders slip up: Barack Obama once despairingly remarked that “I have to deal with him everyday” to the French president in reference to his tumultuous relationship with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

    Two days ago, Rodrigo Duterte, the flamboyant newly-elected president of the Philippines, made it clear he did not welcome any advice from Obama on the matter of the flood of extrajudicial killings his administration has unleashed. Referring to Obama in Tagalog as a “son of a bitch,” the media firestorm was immediate. Yesterday, Duterte felt compelled to state he “regretted” the words.

    In and of itself it’s meaningless. Seeing Duterte’s impulses as a shift toward China are overblowing the situation. Yet that doesn’t mean there isn’t a lesson to be learned here. (more…)

  • Philippines, United States Sign New Defense Agreement

    The United States and the Philippines signed a security agreement on Monday allowing for more American troops to be stationed in the country on a rotational basis. The deal gives the Americans greater access to many of the bases they used to maintain, including the Subic Bay Naval Base, for the next ten years.

    The agreement marks a turnabout for American-Filipino relations after the United States withdrew most of their troops in 1992 in the face of local protests. It also reflects the new security environment in Asia.

    On the final stop of his Asia trip, President Barak Obama appeared with his Filipino counterpart, Benigno S. Aquino III, at a news conference in Manila. Obama took pains to say the deal is not intended to contain China but to “make sure that international rules and norms are protected.” (more…)

  • China Sows ASEAN Discord, Seeds of Future Conflict

    The failure of the annual ministerial meeting last week at the ASEAN Regional Forum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia will be a turning point for the region and a catalyst for more serious clashes over the South China Sea between China and the Philippines and Vietnam. What is more, the aftermath of the summit is shaking the core of ASEAN.

    In the run-up to the summit, member countries and observers rightly saw an agreement for a “code of conduct” in the South China Sea by ASEAN and China as imperative for preventing increasing clashes between claimant naval and fishing vessels from escalating into a full-blown conflict.

    Indeed, in the meetings between foreign ministers before the summit there was word that an agreement was at hand. However, as I wrote in this space last week, China would not be amenable to a binding code of conduct within a multilateral framework of ASEAN because it would constitute a major reversal of longstanding policy of preferring bilateral negotiations, where China has leverage over its smaller neighbors, and of opposing “internationalizing” the South China Sea disputes.

    Needless to say, an agreement was ultimately not concluded, nor was there a joint statement issued at the end of the summit. The summit was a catastrophe. (more…)

  • A Temporary Reprieve for the Philippines

    China and the Philippines agreed this week to exercise restraint in all statements and for all actions regarding their ongoing bilateral dispute in the South China Sea. As the result of an incident in which Chinese surveillance vessels interceded to prevent the arrest of fishermen by a Philippine navy ship, both countries have had naval assets stationed near an island chain for some weeks and have actively engaged in a war of words centered around one question — who owns the Scarborough Shoal?

    While Beijing continues to claim that the territory, deep inside the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone, is inalienably Chinese, it is clear that both sides are wary of escalating tensions any further.

    The announcement, made Tuesday by the Philippine defense minister following talks with his Chinese counterpart, plainly aims to mitigate the possibility of sudden escalations over contested seabed territories and pave the way for a successful diplomatic outcome. (more…)

  • Careful Balancing Act for Southeast Asia

    On Monday, South Korean president Lee Myung-bak visited Burma and promised to extend loans and grants to the poverty stricken country.

    The surprise visit came as Japan and South Korea have stepped up their diplomatic engagement in Southeast Asia over the last month, which, in turn, comes on the heels of closer engagement by the United States since 2009.

    This stems not only from a desire to gain access to the region’s natural resources but more importantly, to bolster their soft power in the Mekong region, an area that is becoming increasingly important as concerns persist about Chinese foreign policy amid the rapid modernization of the People’s Liberation Army. However, while the Mekong countries are interested in the economic and political benefits from closer relations with the United States, they are mindful of the risk of antagonizing China. (more…)

  • The Eagle is Back in Asia

    In the gloomy days of December 1941, when Pearl Harbor had just been attacked by Japan and Nazi-Germany had conquered virtually all of Central and Western Europe, there was a American general in the Philippines bidding goodbye to his friends. “I shall return,” he promised them.

    Three years later, Douglas MacArthur did return. He reconquered the Philippines and went on to help the United States win the war in the Pacific in 1945.

    More than sixty years later, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has made a similar statement in Foreign Policy magazine where she writes about “America’s Pacific Century.” Even if she doesn’t articulate a policy yet, it’s clear that the United States are on the verge of abandoning Richard Nixon’s Guam Doctrine in Asia. (more…)