Philippines’ China swing muddies the Western Pacific

Rodrigo Duterte’s shift towards Beijing has allowed China to appear as a magnanimous power in the region.

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte.

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte’s shift towards Beijing has allowed China to appear as a magnanimous power in the region while potentially making it harder for the US to stop nuclear-armed Chinese submarines breaking out into the Western Pacific in a crisis, analysts have warned.

In Beijing last week Mr Duterte said he was willing to align The Philippines more closely with China and Russia. He also indicated he would not pursue his ­nation’s territorial dispute with Beijing over the South China Sea.

When he returned home, Mr Duterte said that by separating from the US he had not meant he would cut ties with an ally but he was staking out a foreign policy that would not always align with that of Washington.

Michael Wesley, dean of the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National Univer­sity, saidThe Philippines had once provided the US with a very useful set of bases but in more recent times it had not contributed a lot to the American security architecture.

Mr Duterte had now presented China with a golden opportunity to appear magnanimous and reasonable and to be the creative coming power in the region while making the US look outdated, judgmental and of no particular use, Professor Wesley said.

“From that point of view I think we need to be particularly concerned,” he said.

The Philippines occupied strategically very important islands and if it leaned towards Beijing it could give China’s navy easier ­access from its coastal waters into the Western Pacific, Professor Wesley said.

“With The Philippines firmly in the American camp, the US was always going to be able to complicate China’s capacity to get its ­nuclear-armed submarines out into the Western Pacific just ­because of the geography of the straits through which the Chinese submarines would have to go.

“Suddenly, the South China Sea becomes a much less contested piece of water for China.”

The Duterte statement could also make other regional nations less willing to stand up to China and more likely to question the usefulness of the US as their ­insurance policy against China, Professor Wesley said.

Emeritus Professor Paul Dibb of the Australian National University said The Philippines development complicated a situation in which China and Russia were ­increasingly flexing their muscles.

“We’re running through some pretty rocky waters here,” Professor Dibb said. “The Chinese are delighted with Duterte.

“One of America’s oldest allies, a very pro-American country, with a military trained and equipped by the Americans has a president who says in Beijing, in the Great Hall of the People, that he’s sick of the Americans and wants to get close to China and who says China, Russia and The Philippines have a lot in common.”

Within The Philippines establishment there is a palpable nervousness about where Mr Duterte is taking the nation.

Veteran Manila political operative and analyst Pastor “Boy” Saycon said while Mr Duterte had the firm support of lower-socio economic Filipinos, the “upper echelons, and particularly the business community, were feeling threatened over long-term investments and partnerships with foreign friends”.