SUNDAY LONDON TIMES

16-10-16

Duterte jeopardises US Pacific strategy by chasing Beijing’s billions

Philip Sherwell, Manila

Since coming to power in June, Rodrigo Duterte, the abrasive president of the Philippines, has earned international condemnation for his ruthless crackdown on drug users.

Now he is tearing up the balance of power between China and America in the turbulent waters of the Asian Pacific region with a state visit this week to Beijing, where he will be given a red-carpet reception.

Infuriated by US criticism of his use of death squads in his “war on drugs”, he will be the first president of the longstanding US ally to travel to Beijing before Washington.

Duterte’s enthusiastic embrace of Manila’s old adversary threatens to sabotage Barack Obama’s much-vaunted foreign policy priority — the so-called “pivot to Asia”.

Duterte will seek billions of dollars in infrastructure investment and arms deals when he sets off with at least 400 business chiefs on the three-day trip that will include meetings with President Xi Jinping.

The visit is about much more than just trade, however, as the Filipino leader tilts his country towards Beijing and threatens to end joint patrols and base-sharing deals with the US military that date back decades.

The president’s switch of friend and foe is unnerving powerful military commanders in the Philippines. Many trained in the US and have spent decades co-operating with their American counterparts in operations where China has been viewed as the common enemy.

Last week, Fidel Ramos, 88, a former military chief and president who helped persuade Duterte to run for president, issued a rare and biting attack on his policies.

Ramos lamented Duterte’s performance in his first 100 days and warned the Philippines was “losing badly” because of his single-minded domestic focus on the war on drugs and his sustained tirades against world leaders — which have included calling Obama a “son of a bitch”.

Ramos’s intervention was all the more striking because all but a handful of the president’s domestic critics have been cowed by threats and intimidation.

“The Ramos statement was significant because it comes from one of Duterte’s most trusted advisers and chief China negotiator,” said Richard Heydarian, a Manila-based policy adviser and the author of Asia’s New Battlefield: The USA, China and the Struggle for the Western Pacific.

“It shows how even his staunchest supporters are worried about the direction of foreign policy under Duterte, particularly in terms of military co-operation with America.”

The military appears to have little appetite at present to intervene again in politics in the coup-prone country.

However, the comments from Ramos, long considered a mentor of Duterte, are regarded as a “shot across the bows” from the traditional establishment.

“Duterte is taking a huge risk, betting all on China’s goodwill and beneficence without the insurance provided by the diversified, multilateral support of historical and traditional friends and allies,” said Jay Batongbacal, a leading Philippine maritime law expert. “He has bet all his chips on China.”

Duterte has launched his rapprochement with Beijing even as the two countries are locked in a territorial dispute in the South China Sea after the Chinese navy took over Scarborough Shoal, 140 miles off the Philippine coast.

A UN arbitration panel in July found in Manila’s favour in a case brought by the previous government of Benigno Aquino. Yet Duterte has made clear he will not raise the dispute during his trip.

His belligerence towards foreign critics only deepened last week after Fatou Bensouda, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, said any Filipino who incited, ordered or encouraged extrajudicial killings could face prosecution.

Bensouda said she was “deeply concerned” about the soaring death toll in the Philippines and statements by “high officials” who “seem to condone such killings”. At least 3,600 Filipinos have been shot dead in police operations or vigilante-style killings since Duterte assumed office.

By contrast, the president’s Chinese hosts have not only praised the crackdown but also offered to finance new rehabilitation centres to handle the hundreds of thousands on drugs “watch lists” who have surrendered to escape the death squads.