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PHILIPPINES-CHINA RELATIONS: Geopolitics, Economics, and Counterterrorism Chinese Studies Journal, Volume 12

PUBLISHER Philippine Association For Chinese Studies (PACS) Secretariat: c/o Chinese Studies Program, School of Social Sciences Loyola Schools, Ateneo de Manila University Room 200, 2/F, Ricardo and Dr. Rosita Leong Hall ABOUT THE EDITOR Katipunan Avenue, Loyola Heights, Quezon City 1108, Philippines Phone: 426-6001 locals 5280, 5284 Telefax: (632) 929-5397 ROMMEL C. BANLAOI, PhD, is the current president of the Fax: (632)926-5118 Emails: [email protected] Philippine Association for Chinese Studies. He is professorial lecturer [email protected] at the Department of International Studies, Miriam College in Quezon City, Philippines; He is chairman of the Philippine Institute for Peace, PACS BOARD OF DIRECTORS (2018-2020) President: Rommel Banlaoi Violence and Terrorism Research and president of the Philippine Vice President: Aristotle C. Dy, SJ Society for Intelligence and Security Studies, both non-government Secretary: Sharlene May Cua organizations. Treasurer: Ivy Marie Ganadillo He is a member of the board of directors of the China-Southeast Asia Board Members: Theresa Carino Research Center on the South China Sea, a member of the International Tina Clemente Panel of Expert of the Maritime Awareness Project of the National Charles De Guzman Bureau of Asian Research and Sasakawa Peace Foundation, and an Lucio Pitlo Iii adjunct research professor at the National Institute for South China Sea Joaquin Sy Studies. Tan Cho Chiong Dr. Banlaoi was visiting fellow at the Faculty of Law, Leiden University, Patricia Camille Villa the Netherlands; fellow of the Asia Paciﬁ c Center for Security Studies, Board of Advisers: Aileen S.P. Baviera Hawaii; professor at the National Defense College of the Philippines; Aurora Roxas Lim assistant professor in International Studies at De La Salle University, Ellen H. Palanca Manila; and instructor in Political Science at the University of the Chito Sta. Romana Philippines (UP)-Los Baños. Teresita Ang See He authored books and journal articles on Philippines-China Book Design: Liza A. Lopez relations, counterterrorism, South China Sea disputes, international politics, regional security, and Philippine foreign relations, among others. Printed By: 歐尚設計印刷公司 Oasis Design & Printing Company Dr. Banlaoi ﬁ nished his BA and MA in Political Science at the UP- Email: [email protected] Diliman, where he also worked on his PhD in Political Science (ABD). Tel: 0943-8497578 | 242-4268 He obtained his PhD in International Relations at Jinan University in Guangzhou, China.

ISSN: 2350-7217

PPACS_V12_InsideFront_InsideBack.inddACS_V12_InsideFront_InsideBack.indd ii-iiiii-iii 77/17/2019/17/2019 2:32:092:32:09 PMPM PHILIPPINES-CHINA RELATIONS: GEOPOLITICS, ECONOMICS, AND COUNTERTERRORISM

Rommel C. Banlaoi (ed.)

CHINESE STUDIES JOURNAL Volume 12 • 2019

Philippine Association for Chinese Studies 菲律濱中華研究學會

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PPACS_V12_Preface.inddACS_V12_Preface.indd iiii 77/17/2019/17/2019 2:28:172:28:17 PMPM CONTENTS

Acknowledgements Dedication Foreword Preface About the Contributors

GEOPOLITICS

1 Geopolitical Environment of Philippines-China Relations: Maintaining the Security Architecture in the Face of Shifting Power Relations Herman Joseph S. Kraft ...... 1

2 The US Interests in Philippines-China Relations Steven Rood ...... 10

3 Philippines-China Relations and China’s Image in the Philippines: A View from a Chinese Scholar Fan Dai ...... 17

4 Philippines-China Relations: A European/French Perspective Franscois-Xavier Bonnet ...... 28

5 Major Power Rivalry and Condominium of Powers: The Future of US-China Strategic Relations Lucio Blanco Pitlo III ...... 38

6 Scrutinizing the Role of Humiliation Narratives: An Alternative Take on China’s State Behavior in the South China Sea Patricia Villa ...... 54

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7 Philippines-China Relations and China’s Belt and Road Initiative Alvin A. Camba ...... 76

8 China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the Public-Private Partnership Model and State-Owned Enterprises: Considerations for the Philippines Darlene Estrada ...... 87

COUNTERTERRORISM

9 Comparing State Responses in Addressing Violent Extremism, Terrorism, and Muslim Separatism in the Philippines and China: Towards Counterterrorism Cooperation Rommel C. Banlaoi ...... 96

10 Marawi Siege and Its Aftermath: Opportunities and Challenges in Philippines-China Counterterrorism Cooperation Rommel C. Banlaoi ...... 112

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any individuals and institutions contributed immensely to the Mproduction of this 12th volume of PACS Chinese Studies Journal which contains mostly of papers presented at the “Forum on Philippines- China Relations: Geopolitical Perspectives and Realities,” held at Miriam College on November 8, 2018. I am truly indebted to Ambassador Carlos Chan, of Liwayway Marketing Corporation, for supporting the many activities of the Philippine Asso- ciation for Chinese Studies. As the Philippines’ special envoy to China, Ambassador Chan helps enormously in the sustained promotion of friendly relations between the Philippines and China. He also assists PACS unconditionally to achieve its objective of promoting Chinese Studies in the Philippines, particularly the study of Philippines- China relations. Through his support, PACS was able to organize the “Forum on Philippines-China Relations: Geopolitical Perspectives and Realities.” Thanks also to my colleagues at Miriam College, particularly Prof. Pacita Fortin and Dr. Maria Margarita Alvina-Acosta, for co-organizing this forum. I am also grateful to Dr. Tina Clemente, who served as PACS president from 2016 to 2018. Her leadership was a milestone in the history of PACS as it was during her stint when PACS organized the December 2, 2017 International Conference on Philippines-China economic relations that coincided with PACS’ 30th anniversary. Some papers from this conference appear in this volume. I also thank Tina for reviewing some of the papers contained in this volume. Sincere appreciation is conveyed to Ms. Teresita Ang See, who also served as PACS president from 2010 to 2014. It was during her term when PACS organized several conferences and forums on Chinese Studies, including the pioneering conference on the Chinese in Mindanao held in Davao City in May 2012. One of the papers in this volume was presented during the PACS Mindanao conference. Many thanks also to Hon. Chito Sta. Romana, who also served as PACS president from 2014 to 2016. Despite his busy tasks as Philippine ambassador to China, he can still attend PACS meetings and events to show his unwavering support to PACS activities. I also thank the current members of the board of directors of PACS, especially Fr. Aristotle Dy, SJ, our current vice president, for the collective efforts of leading PACS in fulﬁ lling its mission of increasing our under-

PPACS_V12_Preface.inddACS_V12_Preface.indd v 77/17/2019/17/2019 2:28:172:28:17 PMPM standing of China and Philippines-China relations. I am pleased to have Ritchie De Guzman of the PACS secretariat for her excellent help and assistance. I am very happy to have colleagues from the Philippine Institute for Peace, Violence and Terrorism Research who continue to support my leadership despite my divided attention. Serving PACS and PIPVTR at the same time is a very challenging experience. I am truly blessed to have a supportive family who understands my work as an academic. I thank my wife, Grace, for the motivation, and my children – Rome Melchizedek (Zed), Ronaiah Gail (Zoe) and Rommel Gian (Zac) – for the inspiration. Lastly, I thank all the contributors, and also our proofreader, Ms. Liza A. Lopez, who helped make this volume in its present form. I need to stress that while this volume relies on the support of many individuals, shortcomings arising from the production of this volume are solely mine.

ROMMEL C. BANLAOI August 2019

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To Prof. Benito Lim (1937-2019), a dear friend, a reliable colleague, and an excellent academic, who signiﬁ cantly contributed to the enrichment of Chinese Studies in the Philippines and the promotion of Philippines-China friendly relations.

He was one of the key individuals who persistently pursued the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Philippines and China.

His unselﬁ sh efforts also resulted in the mass naturalization of Chinese Filipinos (Tsinoys).

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olicy discourse in the Philippines, as in many democracies, is Pcharacterized by citizen participation. Our people monitor, fi scalize and – drawing from their experience, expertise, and aspirations – fi nd meaningful ways to contribute in steering the nation’s direction. This inclusive tradition also informs our foreign policy and diplomacy. Scholars bring constructive introspection into this inclusive tradition. The Philippines’ ties with China are among its most consequential bilateral relationship. The effective management of this relationship requires not only broad public participation but also a profound understanding of China, its rise and its engagement with the world. Such understanding is fostered by the work of our academics. For the past 32 years, the Philippine Association for Chinese Studies has been the pioneering academic organization promoting Philippines-China relations through mutual understanding. This volume of its Chinese Studies Journal is an important contribution in this regard. It focuses on geopolitics, economics, and counterterrorism – important areas that are currently shaping the direction of Philippines-China relations. I am confi dent that this volume would inspire other scholars to examine the multifaceted dimensions of this important bilateral relationship, which would enrich our understanding of Chinese affairs and further promote closer friendship between our two countries.

CHITO L. STA. ROMANA Philippine Ambassador to China PACS President, 2014-2016

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ince the assumption into offi ce of President Rodrigo R. Duterte in S2016, the study of Philippines-China relations has received greater scholarly attention not only in the Philippines and China but also in the Asia Pacifi c and the rest of the world. Duterte’s paradigm shift to China, notwithstanding the still unresolved territorial disputes in the South China Sea, generated many academic questions that seek to make sense of this type of foreign policy behavior considering the continuing status of the Philippines as a long-standing security ally of the United States. Though Philippines-China relations are bilateral in nature, the two countries’ bilateral relationship has enormous geopolitical importance. This bilateral relationship attracts major powers like the US, Japan, Russia, India, and Australia, among others to be concerned. It is also in the strategic radar of key regional organizations like the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the European Union (EU). Even major Western European powers like Germany, France, and the United Kingdom are interested to know the current state and future direction of Philippines-China relations. However, some discussions on Philippines-China relations tend to highlight extreme views, i.e. either one is pro-China or anti-China, pro- US or anti-US, and pro-Japan or anti-Japan, and others. To provide more nuanced, balanced, and circumspect views, the Philippine Association for Chinese Studies (PACS) organized a public forum on the geopolitics of Philippines-China relations at Miriam College on November 8, 2018. This forum, through the cooperation of speakers, resulted in the production of several papers used in this current volume. Chapter 1, written by Herman Joseph Kraft, describes the geopolitical setting of Philippines-China relations within the larger canvass of shifting great power rivalry between the US and China. Kraft argues that “the confl uence of an intensifying great power rivalry and a weakening of the existing regional security architecture have contributed to a contraction of the strategic space within which the Philippines and its Southeast Asian partners in ASEAN can work between China and the US.” Kraft contends that the decline of American hegemony and China’s pursuit of a greater global role associated with China rise are greatly affecting the geopolitical dynamics of Philippines-China relations. The presence of multilateral institutions like the ASEAN can moderate the effect of US- China rivalry. He observes, however, that there is the waning of ASEAN

PPACS_V12_Preface.inddACS_V12_Preface.indd ixix 77/17/2019/17/2019 2:28:172:28:17 PMPM centrality with its lack of capacity to address regional security issues like territorial disputes in the South China Sea. He concludes that “the great power dynamic between China and the US, without the moderating infl uence of multilateral platforms, will increasingly push regional security relations into a competitive context reminiscent of a balance of power politics.” Kraft, therefore, suggests that geopolitical rivalry between the US and China remains to be a great factor in the current trends and future directions of Philippines-China relations. Chapter 2 describes Philippines-China relations from an American perspective. In this section, Steven Rood, an American who has been a longtime resident of the Philippines as an academic and observer of Philippine politics, examines the US interests in establishing a strong foothold in the Philippines, particularly in the context of Manila’s bilateral ties with Beijing. He argues that the Philippines’ strategic location has strongly attracted the US to colonize the Philippines for its great imperial aspirations in Asia and the Pacifi c. The geographic proximity of the Philippines to China has motivated the US to sustain the political infl uence of its former colony in Southeast Asia. The US current discomforts of rising China make the Philippines even more valuable to American strategic interests in Asia and the larger Indo-Pacifi c region. Rood compares the current behavior of the US with the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta fearing the rise of another Greek city-state of Athens that is now being compared with China. Quoting Thucydides’ The History of the Peloponnesian War, Rood writes, “It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable.” Are the US and China doomed to suffer the “Thucydides’ trap?” Where is the Philippines in this geopolitical equation? Rood attempts to answer these questions by stressing that “the US does have vital geographic strategic interests in the Philippines vis-à-vis China, which provides the Philippines with some leeway to engage in the kind of ‘hedging’ behavior possible for small powers, where major powers are played off against each other.” He concludes, “By virtue of its geographical position on the globe, the Philippines is on the front line of a new great power competition that looms over the next decades. This may be an uncomfortable spot to be, but this is the neighborhood in which the country is fated to be located.” Chapter 3 examines Philippines-China relations from the point of view of a Chinese scholar. Written by Fan Dai, a Chinese observer of Philippine foreign policy toward China, this chapter also discusses China’s image in the Philippines based on his analysis of various open data.

PPACS_V12_Preface.inddACS_V12_Preface.indd x 77/17/2019/17/2019 2:28:172:28:17 PMPM Fan Dai narrates his personal experiences as a visiting scholar to the Philippines. While he talks about his good and bad experiences in the Philippines, in general, he fi nds the Philippines a very nice country, fi lled with very nice and friendly people. He argues that his bad experiences do not outweigh many of his good experiences. Thus, he promotes the Philippines and encourages his friends and colleagues in China to visit the country and experience the warmth of the Filipinos. He admits that some Chinese nationals visiting the Philippines may have bad behavior, but this represent neither the overall image of the Chinese people nor the Chinese government. He argues that the Chinese people and the Chinese government have a sincere desire to be friends with the Philippines like many centuries ago. He contends that sustained people-to-people contact is important to build this friendship for the benefi t of both nations. Though geographically distant to the Philippines and China, Europe has always been paying attention to Asia’s geopolitical developments. Recently, Europe’s greater attention is glued on South China Sea disputes; one aspect of it is Philippines-China relation. Chapter 4 discusses a European perspective of Philippines-China relations through the vantage point of French scholar François-Xavier Bonnet who has been residing in the Philippines for a long time. He asserts that French interests in Philippines-China relations have bearing on its larger interest in the Indo-Pacifi c region where France has a signifi cant presence. France is a maritime power in the region with exclusive economic zones (EEZ) to protect. Bonnet emphasizes, “France’s primary obligation is to protect its territories and population: more than 500,000 inhabitants and more than one million inhabitants are living in the overseas territories of the Pacifi c and the Indian Ocean, respectively.” He continues that France “has the duty to protect its expatriates in the countries of the Asia Pacifi c whose number has increased by 220 percent over the last 20 years to exceed 140,000 in 2017 (eight percent of the total number of French expatriates in the world). More than 30,000 French expatriates are living in China and close to 4,000 in the Philippines.” With these considerations, it is, therefore, essential to France to be mindful of the recent developments in Philippines-China relations, particularly in the context of the South China Sea disputes. Bonnet underscores that the security situation in the South China Sea matters a lot not only to France but also to the EU. European interests in the South China Sea are motivated by their desire to maintain freedom of navigation in the area. Europeans, particularly those from NATO (North

PPACS_V12_Preface.inddACS_V12_Preface.indd xixi 77/17/2019/17/2019 2:28:172:28:17 PMPM Atlantic Treaty Organization), regard the South China Sea as important waters for submarine operations. Thus, Europeans are vigilant about what is happening in the South China Sea. Citing a European diplomat, Bonnet concludes, “We observe, we rejoice when there is a positive step; but we are not naïve, we remain vigilant and we monitor very carefully the events.” Chapter 5, authored by Lucio Blanco Pitlo III, is an updated paper originally presented at the international conference marking the 30th anniversary of PACS. This volume includes this paper because of its inherent signifi cance for Philippines-China relations. This chapter examines the nature of US-China major power rivalry and identifi es seven possible future models for US-China strategic ties: 1) hegemonic system, 2) major power rivalry/power transition, 3) “hubs and spokes,” 4) concert of powers, 5) condominium of power, 6) normative community, and 7) complex interdependence. From these seven models, Pitlo argues that the most likely model that can approximate the evolution of US-China relations in East Asia is a mix of two models -- major power rivalry/power transition (Model 2) and condominium of powers (Model 5). Model 2 portrays an inevitable clash between the US as a dominant power and China as a rising power. This model depicts US-China relations as both competitive and cooperative. Although this model regards US-China relations to be relatively stable, Pitlo argues that “perceptual or real changes in economic and military capacities and intentions cause tensions and, if not managed well, may lead to rupture with serious global consequences.” Model 5 is very much akin to Model 2 because of the competitive, and at the same time cooperative, nature of US-China strategic relations. It emphasizes that “competition and cooperation constitute enduring themes in US-China relations, and they are likely to remain as the defi ning feature of the world’s most important bilateral relations.” Chapter 6, written by Patricia Villa, describes China’s state behavior in the South China Sea, which is an issue of great importance for Philippines-China relations. It describes China’s humiliation narrative as the legitimizing force driving Chinese state foreign policy behavior in the South China Sea. Villa contends that this narrative is so powerful that it justifi es China’s current actions in the South China Sea. Villa says that China’s humiliation narrative affects China’s collective self-esteem that defi nes its national interests. China’s concept of “century of humiliation,” resulting from the “loss of its territories,” has become part of China’s historical collective memory that informs China’s national

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PPACS_V12_Preface.inddACS_V12_Preface.indd xiixii 77/17/2019/17/2019 2:28:172:28:17 PMPM identity. This drives strong nationalism in China’s foreign policy. Villa concludes that the narrative humiliation explains China’s hardline position on territorial disputes in the South China Sea. From the geopolitics of Philippines-China relations, this volume also covers the economic aspect of the bilateral ties. The Philippines and China have a robust history of economic relations that dates back many centuries ago. But the major factor that presently affects Philippines-China economic relations is China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This volume contains two chapters that examine the implications of the BRI on the Philippines-China relations. Chapter 7 describes what BRI means for the Philippines. Authored by Alvin Camba, a US-based Filipino scholar specializing on China’s BRI, this chapter argues that the BRI “cannot be fully understood using the lens of geopolitics, which paints BRI as a security threat or as China’s benevolent gift to the developing world. Rather, BRI enables host countries to borrow foreign capital to fund infrastructural development, which is crucial to build up a country’s productive base and pursue medium to long-term economic strategy. The BRI’s success or failure is not predetermined but depends on host country features.” As Camba examines BRI projects in the Philippines, he rejects the notion of debt trap being associated with the project. He contends that the current compositions of BRI projects in the Philippines “make a debt trap unlikely.” While Camba acknowledges that there are dangers and risks to the Chinese loans, a successful outcome of these loans depends largely on how the Philippines, as the host country, utilizes these loans to meet its development needs. Camba concludes that from a political economy perspective, “the BRI increases the options for the developing world to pursue infrastructural development. The BRI can bring foreign direct investment, construction contracts, and development loans to host country projects.” Chapter 8 also talks about the BRI in the context of public-private partnership (PPP) model and state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Contributed by Darlene Estrada, this chapter discusses the origin and evolution of the BRI and its importance to the Philippines. She observes that the Philippine government remains receptive of BRI because of its congruence to the Duterte government’s domestic goal of ushering a “golden age of infrastructure.” However, Estrada urges the Philippine government to exercise due diligence in applying the PPP model in the BRI projects, particularly with the involvement of China’s SOEs, because China’s SOEs behave differently from private companies.

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PPACS_V12_Preface.inddACS_V12_Preface.indd xiiixiii 77/17/2019/17/2019 2:28:172:28:17 PMPM While China has a long track record of implementing the PPP model since the 1980s, most of its major economic development initiatives are driven by the SOEs. Estrada stresses, “the Philippine government needs to formulate a nuanced way of dealing with SOEs as these are different from the ‘private’ that it is used to interacting within PPPs.” She concludes, “The different nature of SOEs in terms of goals and strategies necessitates a nuanced response and a carefully thought out plan to ensure win-win deals with partner states. The Philippines have long employed regulatory rules and laws in carrying out PPP deals in the country. What it needs to do is ensure the continuous and judicious use of these institutional safeguards to protect Philippine interests.” One area of Philippines-China relations that needs further scholarly attention is counterterrorism. Chapter 9 calls for the need to pursue counterterrorism cooperation between the Philippines and China in the light of two countries’ common problems of countering violent extremism, terrorism, and Muslim separatism. Written by Rommel C. Banlaoi, this chapter makes a comparative analysis of states responses to these problems. Banlaoi identiﬁ es some similarities in terms of the nature of these problems. In the Philippines, Muslim separatism emanates from violent extremist groups of Moros. In China, it emanates from violent extremist groups of Uyghurs. These violent extremist groups commit various acts of terrorism. Government measure in the Philippines to address these problems was the establishment of Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. China, on the other hand, created the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Banlaoi ﬁ nds out that though both countries share some similarities in addressing their common problems, China and the Philippines have different approaches in dealing with violent extremism, terrorism, and Muslim separatism. The Philippines is implementing a softer approach through the peace process while China is pursuing a harder approach through strong law enforcement. For the Philippines, the government regards the status quo as unacceptable and recognizes the right of the Muslims in Mindanao to protect their identity and enjoy their right to self-determination. For China, however, there is a need to preserve the status quo as it regards Xinjiang as “an inseparable part of the unitary multi-ethnic Chinese nation.” Both countries, however, can learn lessons from each other’s approaches. These lessons are essential to promote counterterrorism cooperation between the two countries.

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PPACS_V12_Preface.inddACS_V12_Preface.indd xivxiv 77/17/2019/17/2019 2:28:172:28:17 PMPM This volume concludes with Chapter 10 which examines counterterrorism cooperation between the Philippines and China during and after the Marawi City siege. Prepared by Banlaoi, this chapter discusses the evolution of Philippines-China counterterrorism cooperation, which has become more serious since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The 2017 Marawi siege has accelerated the two countries’ counterterrorism cooperation. Banlaoi underscores that the Marawi siege has provided China and the Philippines several opportunities to actualize practical cooperation in combating terrorism. During the Marawi siege, China provided logistical and ﬁ nancial assistance to the Philippines to defeat groups responsible for the terrorist attack. After the siege, China continued its support by participating in the rehabilitation of the most affected areas of Marawi City. However, Banlaoi observes that some concomitant challenges are affecting effective counterterrorism cooperation between the two countries. These challenges come from different threat perceptions and security outlooks, ideological and legal orientations of counterterrorism policies, as well as institutional and bureaucratic arrangements for counterterrorism. Banlaoi urges both countries to surmount these challenges by sustaining their friendship and enhance their cooperation. Though this volume covers a wide array of issues surrounding Philippines-China relations, there are still many areas in the bilateral relations needing further scholarly studies. It is the fervent aspiration of PACS to support these scholarly studies to enrich the production of knowledge on Philippines-China relations for purposes of informing foreign policies and improving bilateral diplomacies towards mutual gains, beneﬁ ts, and advantages.

PPACS_V12_Preface.inddACS_V12_Preface.indd xvxv 77/17/2019/17/2019 2:28:172:28:17 PMPM ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

FRANÇOIS-XAVIER BONNET is a geographer and a research associate of the Research Institute on Contemporary Southeast Asia (Irasec). He is also a member of the Observatory of Southeast Asia (Asia Centre of Science Po Paris). His researches are focused on the geopolitics of Philippines: Muslim guerilla, peace process in Mindanao, maritime disputes in the South China Sea, and others. His latest publication is “La coopération militaire entre les Philippines et les pays de l’ASEAN,” in Nathalie Fau et Benoît de Treglodé (dir.), Mers d’Asie du Sud-Est, coopérations, intégration et sécurité, CNRS Editions, Paris (November 2018). He also published Geopolitics of Scarborough, Les Notes de l’Irasec n°14 (Irasec’s Discussion Paper No. 14, 2012) and The Spratlys: A geopolitics of secret maritime sea-lanes, Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, CSIS, Washington (2016).

ALVIN CAMBA is PhD candidate at the Department of Sociology, Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore and a China Initiative Fellow at the Global Development Policy Center at Boston University. He is also a non-resident fellow or afﬁ liate researcher with numerous Southeast Asian research institutes and think tanks. The Southeast Asia Research Group, Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, Smith Richardson Foundation, National Endowment of Democracy, and a number of other academic networks have funded his work. He received multiple best graduate research paper awards by the American Sociological Association. He has published works in several SSCI (Social Sciences and Citation Index) journals (e.g. journal of Agrarian Change, Palgrave Communications, Extractive Industries and Society) and contributed to popular outlets or policy venues, such as The Diplomat, New Mandala, and East Asia Forum. He is currently co-authoring a book on China's Belt and Road Initiative in South and Southeast Asia.

FAN DAI is associate professor and vice dean of the School of International Studies/Academy of Overseas Chinese Studies, Jinan University. He was visiting research fellow at Asian Center of the University of the Philippines (UP)-Diliman from 2007-2008. He built the ﬁ rst Center for Philippine Studies at Jinan University in 2016. His academic interest mainly focuses on Philippines’ foreign policy and Chinese Filipino.

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PPACS_V12_Preface.inddACS_V12_Preface.indd xvixvi 77/17/2019/17/2019 2:28:182:28:18 PMPM DARLENE V. ESTRADA is a graduate student of UP-Diliman, where she is also taking up a master’s degree in Asian Studies – Northeast Asia (China). She is also a Foreign Affairs research specialist at the Center for International Relations and Strategic Studies of the Foreign Service Institute of the Department of Foreign Affairs, undertaking research on key issues on Philippines-China relations.

HERMAN JOSEPH S. KRAFT is associate professor at the Department of Political Science at the University of the Philippines, Diliman. He is also a convenor of the UP-Strategic Studies Program at the Center for Integrative and Development Studies. He has been involved in unofﬁ cial and informal dialogue mechanisms on security in Southeast Asia and the broader Asia Paciﬁ c region since 1993. He has worked on and published articles and book chapters on regional security and security issues involving the Philippines and Southeast Asia.

LUCIO BLANCO PITLO III is a member of the board of directors of the Philippine Association for Chinese Studies (PACS), a research fellow at the Asia-Paciﬁ c Pathways to Progress Foundation (Pathways), and lecturer at the Chinese Studies Program at the Ateneo de Manila University. He is also a contributing editor (Reviews) for the journal Asian Politics & Policy published by Wiley. He is a participant in numerous local and regional academic dialogues on security and connectivity, including Track 1.5 and Track 2 discussions hosted by Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). His commentaries and op-ed pieces on the Philippines’ and Association of Southeast Asian Nation’s relations with major powers, notably China and the United States (US), regional connectivity and maritime issues appear in the South China Morning Post, Pathways, China- US Focus, CSIS Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, among others.

STEVEN ROOD received his PhD in 1981 from Boston University. From 1981 to 1999, he was professor of Political Science at UP-Baguio and research director of the Cordillera Studies Center. From 1999 to 2017, he was Philippines representative for The Asia Foundation. In that capacity, he served from 2009 to 2013 on the International Contact Group for negotiations between the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the Philippine government, and from 2013 to 2017 on the Third-Party Monitoring Team which monitors the implementation of agreements reached in the negotiations. In 2017, he became a visiting fellow at the Australian National University in Canberra. Since 2018, he has been a

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PPACS_V12_Preface.inddACS_V12_Preface.indd xviixvii 77/17/2019/17/2019 2:28:182:28:18 PMPM fellow-in-residence and a member of the board of Social Weather Stations. His newest publication, Philippines: What Everyone Needs to Know, is set to be published by the Oxford University Press in 2019.

PATRICIA CAMILLE VILLA is completing her master’s degree in Political Science at UP-Diliman with a specialization on Comparative Politics. She teaches courses on comparative politics, international relations, and Philippine politics at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines in Sta. Mesa, Manila. She is currently a member of the board of directors of PACS. Her research interests include Northeast Asian comparative politics, Philippines-China relations, elite politics, and local politics in China and the Philippines.

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PPACS_V12_Preface.inddACS_V12_Preface.indd xviiixviii 77/17/2019/17/2019 2:28:182:28:18 PMPM THE GEOPOLITICAL ENVIRONMENT OF PHILIPPINES-CHINA RELATIONS: 1 Maintaining the Security Architecture in the Face of Shifting Power Relations KRAFT KRAFT

Herman Joseph S. Kraft

THE GEOPOLITICAL ENVIRONMENT OF PHILIPPINES-CHINA RELATIONS: Maintaining the Security Architecture in the Face of Shifting Power Relations*

Introduction

eopolitics is broadly understood as the relationship between geography Gand the exercise of power. As such it has been associated with the conduct of power politics in international relations, that is, rivalries between the great powers, and grand strategy. In this context, small states and their place in international relations are given very little consideration. Recently, however, Philippine foreign policy has attracted quite a bit of attention in the international scene when the administration of President Rodrigo R. Duterte began to take foreign policy directions that was characterized by three points. The first revolved around the expressions of antipathy by the Philippine President towards the European Union (EU) and the United States – especially when Barrack Obama was still US president – regarding their critical position on the administration’s “war on drugs.” This was manifested in public talks, speeches, or press conferences delivered by President Duterte, where he used “colorful language” that was insulting and expressed in either humorous or agitated manner. This was particularly jarring for the country’s relationship with the US, which has

* Paper based on a presentation given at the “Forum on Philippines-China Relations: Geopolitical Perspectives and Realities,” organized by the Philippine Association for Chinese Studies (PACS) and the Department of International Studies, Miriam College and held at the Little Theater, Miriam College, Quezon City on November 8, 2018. This paper is also based on a talk on “Philippine Foreign Policy in a Changed Strategic Environment,” given at the ASEAN Studies Centre of the Chung-Hua Institute for Economic Research held in Taipei, Taiwan on June 20, 2018.

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largely been described in terms of a historic strategic partnership since the end of the Second World War. Juxtaposed against this development is the second point which some have referred to as a “pivot to China.” The Duterte administration made a strong push to reverse the trend of poor relations with China that was a legacy of the Aquino administration. His approach, however, was hardly idiosyncratic, being widely perceived as ingratiating, if not sycophantic. These two developments in turn became pieces in the intensifying great power relationship between China and the US – a relationship which has had, as a consequence, the diminished significance of the existing regional architecture built around multilateral arrangements. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), traditionally an important plank of the Philippines’ regional engagements, has been laying claim to the centrality of its role in maintaining the cooperative system of regional interstate relations. This, however, gave way to the increasing “central role” of China’s network of bilateral relations built around its economic strength and the unwillingness of the US to cede anything to China in terms of its dominant position geopolitically. The confluence of these three factors was helped along and in turn contributed to the orientation of the direction of the Duterte administration’s foreign policy. While hardly a catalyst in the broad sweep of geopolitical developments in the region, it is nonetheless a key indicator of how these developments have moved the region toward a crossroads where decisions will have to be made on what kind of order the region will have to settle for. This paper attempts to show the nature of the crossroad rather than what is beyond it. It argues that the confluence of an intensifying great power rivalry and a weakening of the existing regional security architecture contributed to a contraction of the strategic space within which the Philippines and its Southeast Asian partners in ASEAN can work between China and the US.

American Hegemonic Decline

A key aspect of the changing regional environment is the argument behind US decline. Susan Strange (1988), in her article, “The Persistent Myth of Lost Hegemony,” argued that hegemony can be determined through four global structures, namely: security, production, finance, and knowledge.

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The point she was making then was that what were then prevalent claims of US hegemonic decline were wrong as the US remained dominant in all these four structures. Using these same metrics, however, we can see that while the US remains dominant in these areas globally, it is no longer unchallenged especially when compared to the period in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990 (see Krauthammer, 1990, 1991). The US still has and maintains the most powerful military in the world (see Global Firepower Index 2017 and SIPRI Index on the Top Countries for Military Expenditure 2016); it still has the largest economy in the world and the largest share of the world’s GDP (see Gross Domestic Product Ranking 2017); and it is acknowledged as the leading producer of scientific and applied research. China may have the largest foreign exchange reserves (see Country Comparison: Reserves of Foreign Exchange and Gold 2016), but the largest amount of global financial transactions still take place in New York City (see The 20 Largest Stock Exchanges in the World 2017). By these indicators, the US remains the most dominant country in the world. In fact, President Obama rebutted these claims in his State of the Union Address on January 24, 2012, pointing to the continuing strength of the US and claiming that those who talk about US decline “do not know what they are talking about.” And as noted in what Strange was discussing, this is not the first time that there has been speculation and rebuttal on the relative decline of the US as the dominant superpower, indeed, as the global hegemon (aside from Strange,1988, see also Russett, 1985 and Milner and Snyder, 1988). And yet, there are a number of factors that seem to point out that this time, “it’s for real (Rachman, 2011).” The current discussion on the decline of the US as global hegemon was principally brought about by a combination of factors emanating from America’s slow economic recovery since 2008, its large fiscal deficits as well as the belief that the US has lost influence because of its overstretched commitments emanating from its responses to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Certainly, the economic crisis that hit the US in September 2008 opened up widespread discussions on the issue (see, for example, Acharya, 2012; Clark and Hoque, 2012; Ipek, 2013; and Zakaria, 2008). The way it handled questions about the detainee facilities in Guantanamo, the use of torture against the detainees in these facilities as a way of getting intelligence, and just the overall conduct of the invasion of Iraq in 2003 led to a loss of its international moral standing and weakened the impact of its “soft power” (Kagan, 2012).

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The US hegemony, however, was always most strongly felt in its ability to inform and enforce global norms, values, and culture. And, it is in these areas that some degree of US decline is showing largely because of a fragile national consensus on what America stands for (the so-called culture war in America), and consequently, an increasingly polarized polity (see, for example, Goodman, 2019). The election of Donald Trump and his pandering to nationalist sentiments seem to indicate that there is popular dissatisfaction and even fatigue with the globalist policies that US presidential administrations have pursued especially in the last thirty years that cuts across ideological lines. This is a domestic political debate, but one that has implications for what role the US will play in what is clearly a changing global and regional order.

China’s Rise and Pursuit of a Greater Global Role

Arguments about the decline of American hegemony are often accompanied by discussions on the rise of China (see, for example, Lake, 2006; Layne, 2008; Luce, 2012; Rachman, 2011; and Schweller and Pu, 2011). Indeed, China has reached a position in international relations that makes it a significant, if not the most significant player in regional affairs. It is poised to overtake the United States as the world’s largest economy with projections that this could happen before 2030 (see Colville, 2017). The International Monetary Fund had in fact noted that this had happened in 2014 if economies were measured in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms (see Carter, 2014). China’s share of global productivity has been rising and is expected to overtake the US by this year (see Patton, 2016). From a geopolitical standpoint, this economic rise, which was the foundation of the “peaceful rise” of China thesis, has now been leveraged by China to challenge the US for dominance in the Asia Pacific and expand China’s reach globally. First, they have been able to make China either the most important or second most important economic partner of practically every country in the region. In many cases, this has been used as a pressure point to push China’s political agenda (see discussion below on ASEAN). Second, they are now seeking to rebuild the “regional architecture” but with China as its focal point. Two overarching projects underpin this. First is the Belt and Road Initiative, which one Filipino military analyst has characterized as a strategic reach for dominance using an economic platform, and the Asian

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Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). Using its economic influence (and, in a number of cases, economic dependence on China grows), China effectively constrained the hedging strategies that many countries in the region seek to use in their relations with the US and China. Its economic reach constricted the scope within which countries in the region, especially smaller ones, can maneuver politically. Second, precisely because they made it more difficult for countries around the region to maneuver politically, they became more assertive in their attempts to shape regional norms and processes, (e.g. promoting bilateral mechanisms even as it seems to support multilateralism), enforcing their interpretation of terms of engagement on disputes (e.g. South China Sea and cross-Straits relations), and even on the legitimacy of the participation of countries in these norms and processes (e.g. only those who were directly involved in disputes could be involved in discussions about these disputes). By doing this, it sought to further limit the wiggle room for hedging strategies. Economic carrots and sticks were combined with normative structures that favored China’s structural advantages. Furthermore, these courses of action not only emphasized China’s strengths but also exhibited the limitations of existing security structures. The emergence of China as a regional power with hegemonic characteristics raised questions about what kind of regional order would shape a region projected to be the hub of global economic production and trade in this century.1 Beyond the economic implications, however, China’s emergence opened up a significant discussion on the issue of how this development affects regional security in East Asia and the broader Asia Pacific.

The Waning of Asean Centrality and of the Existing Regional Architecture

In the years since 1994, when the ASEAN Regional Forum, (ARF) was established, regional dynamics had largely been filtered through concentric and overlapping circles of multilateral arrangements that emphasized cooperation on multiple issues at multiple levels. The effectiveness of this

1 There have been so many references to the Asian or Pacific century in books and conferences.

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system, however, was premised on the willingness of the great powers to accede to regional arrangements and decisions reached therein. With China’s rise and increasing challenges to the existing order, this “architecture” is effectively being undermined. A key feature of this “regional architecture” was the notion of “ASEAN centrality” (see Tan, 2013). While vague in what it means, it essentially revolved around the fact that ASEAN became a hub for networks of discussions and meetings intended to build regional consensus on what constituted common concerns and what to do with them. As such, ASEAN provided the venue for these meetings (e.g. the East Asia Summit, the ASEAN Plus 3, and others), the agenda, and the rules of participation. If contraposed to what China has been doing, its supposed support for ASEAN centrality is belied by its activities which effectively undermine ASEAN centrality. This was further weakened by how the US deals with China – limited regional cooperation on specific issues but overlaid by strategic competition. The great power compact to support ASEAN and ASEAN-driven multilateralism is effectively gone and a foundational element of ASEAN Centrality is no longer extant (see Goh, 2012; Tow, 2012). In 2011, the Obama administration pushed what became known as the US rebalancing strategy to Asia. Central to it was the shifting of 60 percent of US naval power to the Pacific, as well as the re-establishment of US political and economic leadership in the region. The Obama administration always emphasized the point that this strategy was not specifically a response to the emergence of China as a dominant power in the Asia Pacific. Whether this is true or not, the rise of China has caught the attention of strategic planners in the US. In January 2012, the US Department of Defense announced that among its priorities was the “necessity [to] rebalance toward the Asia- Pacific region” as “[o]ver the long term, China’s emergence as a regional power will have the potential to affect the US economy and our security in a variety of ways (2012; p. 2). Again, whether or not the pivot is not directed against an emergent China, the Chinese nonetheless do see it in those terms. An argument was made in Chinese policy and academic circles about how the US feels compelled to increase its participation in regional affairs because of its weakened global stature – and, thus, became more strident in its involvement in territorial disputes in the region (Suryodiningrat, 2013; Jia, 2013). These developments are shaping regional order in a way that ASEAN is absolutely powerless to do anything about.

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Summation and Observation

America continued to strategize an approach towards the Asia Pacific region that would meet China’s rise. The rebalancing strategy gave way to rhetoric about an Indo-Pacific strategy. This had little traction, however, as the rhetoric was not matched by a clear operational idea of what it had included. Attempts to establish parallel tracks to China’s approach to regional cooperation seem likewise to have a limited prospect. The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, formerly the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), would be a more serious proposition with the US in it. It would be able to present an alternative track to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. With the US before, it was already a hard-sell to countries in the region. Without the US, there is little urgency for anyone to join it especially since China’s own offerings require so little in terms of admission. This does not show the US having relinquished its position of hegemony. That America remains dominant is not being questioned. It does show how the age of American unipolarity can now be said to be at an end. Developments in the Asia Pacific region raised the prospect of a return to balance of power politics. These emerging trends portend an emerging security dilemma for the region. The intensifying rivalry between China and the US more clearly emphasizes traditional international relations and security with its emphasis on inter-state relations and competition. The revitalization of alliance politics, increasing emphasis on maritime territorial issues, and re-militarization of political dynamics in the Korean peninsula only contribute to this framing of regional relations. On the other hand, the multilateral mechanisms that had ASEAN at the center emphasizes cooperation, at least normatively if not always materially. In this context, non-traditional security concerns were the principal area of discussion and debate. The dilemma lies in the way that the great power dynamic between China and the US, without the moderating influence of multilateral platforms, will increasingly push regional security relations into a competitive context reminiscent of balance of power politics. Unfortunately, the same dynamic is undermining the influence and impact of existing multilateral institutions and arrangements (exemplified by ASEAN and ASEAN-driven mechanisms) designed precisely to mitigate the effect of great power politics and competition. Unless the regional order moves away from this trend, the prospect of cooperative security with its less conflict-oriented framing of security would be difficult to sustain.

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References

“2017 Military Strength Ranking.” Global Firepower. Retrieved on March 9, 2018 from https://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-listing.asp. Acharya, Amitav. (2014). The End of American World Order. Cambridge: Polity Press. Carter, Ben. (2014). “Is China’s economy really the largest in the world?” BBC News. Retrieved on March 10, 2018 from http://www.bbc.com/news/ magazine-30483762. Clark, Sean, and Hoque, Sabrina. (Eds). (2012). Debating a Post-American World: What Lies Ahead? London and New York: Routledge. Colvin, Jeff. (2017). “Study: China will overtake the US as world’s largest economy before 2030.” Fortune Magazine. Retrieved on March 10, 2018 from http://fortune.com/2017/02/09/study-china-will-overtake-the-u-s-as- worlds-largest-economy-before-2030. “Country Comparison: Reserves of Foreign Exchange and Gold.” Retrieved on March 9, 2018 from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world- factbook/rankorder/2188rank.html. Department of Defense. (2012). Sustaining US Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense. Washington, DC: Department of Defense. Desjardins, Jeff. (2017). “The 20 Largest Stock Exchanges in the World.” Visual Capitalist. Retrieved on March 9, 2018 from http://www.visualcapitalist. com/20-largest-stock-exchanges-world. Goh, Evelyn. (2012). “Institutions and the great power bargain in East Asia: ASEAN’s limited ‘brokerage’ role.” In Emmers, Ralf. (Ed). ASEAN and the Institutionalization of East Asia. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 105-121. Goodman, Peter S. (2019). “US ceding its role as the champion of global trade.” The New York Times, vol. 1. “Gross domestic product ranking by country 2017 (in billion US dollars).” Retrieved on March 9, 2018 from https://www.statista.com/statistics/270267/united- states-share-of-global-gross-domestic-product-gdp. Ipek, Pinar. (2013). “Hegemony and Crisis in Global Political Economy: The Importance of Legitimacy.” Perceptions, vol. 18, no. 4, pp. 29-45. Jia Qingguo. (2013). “China and the region.” CSCAP Regional Security Outlook 2013. Canberra: Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific. Kagan, Robert. (2012). “Not Fade Away: Against the Myth of American Decline,” The New Republic. Retrieved on November 16, 2016 from https:// newrepublic.com/article/99521/america-world-power-declinism.

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Krauthammer, Charles. (1990, 1991). “The unipolar moment.” Foreign Affairs, vol. 70, no.1, pp. 23-33. Lake, David. (2006). “American Hegemony and the Future of East-West Relations.” International Studies Perspectives, vol. 7, pp. 23-30. Layne, Christopher. (2008). “China’s Challenge to US hegemony.” Current History, pp. 13-18. Luce, Edward. (2012). “The Reality of American Decline.” Financial Times. Retrieved on November 16, 2016 from https://www.ft.com/ content/8268fb6e-4e65-11e1-aa0b-00144feabdc0. Milner, Helen, and Snyder, Jack. (1988). “Lost Hegemony?” International Organization, vol. 42, no. 4, pp. 749-750. Patton, Mike. (2016). “China’s economy will overtake the US in 2018.” Forbes Magazine. Retrieved on March 10, 2018 from https://www.forbes.com/sites/ mikepatton/2016/04/29/global-economic-news-china-will-surpass-the-u-s- in-2018/#729f8b4b224a. Rachman, Gideon. (2011). “Think Again: American Decline,” Foreign Policy. Retrieved on November 2, 2016 from http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/01/03/ think-again-american-decline/. Russett, Bruce. (1985). “The Mysterious Case of Vanishing Hegemony, or, is Mark Twain Really Dead?” International Organization, vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 207-231. Strange, Susan. (1987). “The Persistent Myth of Lost Hegemony.” International Organization, vol. 41, no. 4, pp. 551-574. Schweller, Randall L., and Pu Xiaoyu. (2011). “After Unipolarity: China’s Visions of International Order in an Era of US Decline.” International Security, vol. 36, no. 1, pp. 41-72. Suryodiningrat, Meidyatama. (2013). “The US ‘Pivot’: A Preamble to the Asia Pacific’s Cold War?” CSCAP Regional Security Outlook 2013. Canberra: CSCAP, pp. 20-25. Tan See Seng. (2013). “ASEAN Centrality.” CSCAP Regional Security Outlook 2013. Canberra: Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific, pp. 26-29. “The Top 15 Countries for Military Expenditure in 2016.” Forbes Statista. Retrieved on March 9, 2018 from https://blogs-images.forbes.com/ niallmccarthy/files/2017/04/20170424_Military_Expenditure.jpg. Tow, William T. (2012). “Great Powers and Multilateralism: The Politics of Security Architectures in Southeast Asia.” In Ralf Emmers. (Ed). ASEAN and the Institutionalization of East Asia. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 155-168. Zakaria, Fareed. (2008). The Post-American World. New York: W.W. Norton.

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Steven Rood

The US Interests in Philippines-China Relations*

Introduction

should be clear that that the approach in this paper is to not talk about Ithe particular personalities or news of the moment. For instance, President Rodrigo R. Duterte switched from cursing former United States President Barrack Obama in 2016 to serenading President Donald Trump in 2017 (Rood, 2017). Or the American military has been consistent in maintaining a stepped-up presence in the South China Sea despite the ups and downs of Trump’s “trade war” with China (Mogato, 2919). In the late 1800s, the Foreign minister of the United Kingdom, Lord Palmerston, observed that in international relations, there are no permanent friends or permanent enemies, only permanent interests. That will be the focus of this paper – to describe the interest of the US, whether or not Trump has any interest in the geopolitics of the Philippines-China relations.

Location, Location, Location

For the Philippines, its fate often seems to be determined by its position on the globe. Before Ferdinand Magellan, there were trade routes involving China and the larger Southeast Asian region. This larger interaction led to the introduction of Islam into the Sulu archipelago and elsewhere in the islands. However, regional disruption was on the horizon as the

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Portuguese conquered Malacca in 1511. The struggle between European imperialism and local rulers began – a struggle over trade, with the Spice Islands (Maluku Islands) as a focus. A search for access to the Spice Islands led the Spanish to the archipelago that we now call the Philippines, where disappointingly spices seemed not to be prevalent. In fact, in a twist of historical fate, the islands themselves ought not have gone to the Spanish since the Philippines is on the wrong side of the line established by the 1529 Treaty of Zaragoza (the follow-up to the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas down the Atlantic marking the division between Spain and Portugal, making so Brazil Portuguese-speaking). The fact that the Philippine islands seemed to be of little economic value in themselves (and that the two crowns were united from 1580 to 1640) meant that the Spain got to keep them. The attractiveness of the islands to Spain lay in the souls to be converted to Christianity and its proximity to China. Trade between China and the islands had been going on for centuries, and Manila was a thriving port with Chinese vessels in it when the Spanish conquered it in 1571. Almost immediately, the Spanish started mulling the conquest of China, but King Philip II never approved of such a fanciful idea and the 1588 destruction of the Spanish Armada put an end to any such speculation. Rather, Manila was used as an entrepôt for the exchange of New World silver for Chinese goods in what has been dubbed “the birth of globalization” (Gordon and Morales). The galleon trade, rather than exploitable resources, is what made the newest imperial possessions attractive to Spain (the colony was not financially self-sustaining until the establishment of the tobacco monopoly two centuries later). At the end of the 19th century, the Philippines’ geographic location again made it attractive to the American imperial project. In 1893, the US Census Bureau announced that the latest census showed that the frontier line (beyond which population density was below two per square mile) no longer existed in the mainland, excluding Alaska. Extra-continental expansion did occur, with the US taking possession of Guano Islands (for their fertilizer resources) in the second half of the 19th century, including Midway Islands in 1898, and a long process of increasing American domination led to the annexation of Hawaii in 1900. A vision of naval power led to a desire for far-flung basing possibilities, and the Spanish- American War was the impetus for a quick strike in the Battle of Manila Bay. This was followed by the bloody Philippine-American War, resulting in the US acquiring territory in the Western Pacific.

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During the American period, it became obvious that Japan would be interested in the Philippine archipelago but preparations for that eventuality proved insufficient (McCoy, pp. 982-984). After World War II, the American bases were central to relations between the newly independent Philippines and the US and were key installations in both the Cold War and in the shooting war in Vietnam (Cooley, Chapter 3). Even though the US bases in the Philippines were closed in 1992, in the wake of a Philippine Senate vote to not renew the bases treaty, the Philippines and the US continue to enjoy robust military cooperation under a series of agreements reached since 1992, including the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) signed in 2014. This may seem surprising, considering some of the rhetorical forays of Duterte, but it is emblematic of the fact that interests tend to go beyond personalities. While the military relationship has many aspects, including combatting violent extremism (predominantly in the southern Philippines) and Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Response, as in the aftermath of the 2013 Super Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda, for this article, the focus is on great power rivalry with China.

It takes Two to Tangle

Recently, in considering the rise of China to be the second largest economy in the world, with various projections of when it might pass the US to be the largest economy in the world, Graham Allison has popularized the term, “Thucydides Trap” (2017). This allusion to classical Greece comes from Thucydides’s The History of the Peloponnesian War between Sparta and Athens. Thucydides explained, “It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable.” Sparta was the famous martial power while Athens was the center of a rising commercial empire. Looking at history, Allison’s team found 16 cases in the last 500 years where a rising power challenged a dominant power, 12 of which led to war (Allison, pp. 41-42). Three of these cases were in the 20th century, two in Europe (World War I and World War II, where the rising power was Germany), and one in Asia (where the rising power, challenging the US, was Japan). It is useful to note that this idea, of the danger that the fear of a rising power causes a war, has been in the international relations discipline for 50 years under the label Power Transition theory developed by A.F.K. Organski (Kugler, 2011). Power Transition theory was explicitly opposed to the so-

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called “balance of power” theory, that the best guarantee of peace was a rough equivalency among powers. In Power Transition theory, the greatest danger of war was when a rising power approached equivalency with an established power – the rising power may want to use force to “seize its chance” while the established power would want to use force “before it’s too late.” An interesting empirical fact is that defeat in these wars tends not to, in the long run, deflect the rise of the new powers. Thus, Germany rose from the ashes twice after World Wars I and II; after the first war to be the instigator of the second, and after the second to become the largest economy in Europe. Similarly, Japan rose from the ashes of total defeat in World War II to seemingly threaten American global economic dominance by the 1980s, though in recent decades, that narrative line faded in the face of Japanese economic problems. The “rise of China” is evident to all observers – depending on the measures used and projection techniques, China has already passed the US on economic output or will do so within the next decade. The question for the US is how to react to this new reality. For almost 20 years, the dominant American approach was to involve China in a number of the institutions of what is generally referred to as the “liberal world order,” for example, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation in 1991 and the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001. Some even hoped (based on what amounts to mainstream modernization theory) that economic growth would lead China to become more like western-style democracies. On the Chinese side, the 1990 advice of Deng Xiaoping to “hide your strength and bide your time” meant that often, their economic growth was not seen as threatening. The strategy was not to contain China as a rival, as had been the long-term thrust against the Soviet Union, but to incorporate it into the liberal world order. However, in recent years, a general consensus has grown up in America that this strategy of incorporation did not work. For instance, Americans came to believe that accession to the WTO did not stop discrimination against foreign firms, intellectual property theft, and others. In particular, in the face of such statements by China President Xi Jingping as “our military must regard combat readiness as the goal for all its work and focus on how to win when it is called upon,” the American foreign policy establishment has been rethinking its approach.1

1 It must be emphasized that the much-touted “trade war” between China and the US under Trump does not enjoy wide agreement. Rather, it is often viewed as the rough equivalent of two antagonists shooting themselves in the foot and not in the American interest.

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‘This National Security Strategy puts America First’

As might be expected from an administration whose head campaigned on the promise to “make America great again,” the argument is clear:

These competitions [with inter alia, China and Russia] require the United States to rethink the policies of the past two decades – policies based on the assumption that engagement with rivals and their inclusion in international institutions and global commerce would turn them into benign actors and trustworthy partners. For the most part, this premise turned out to be false (US, 2017, p. 3).

Particularly relevant for the Philippines is that much of the foreign policy establishment is in agreement with the events in the South China/ West Philippine Sea. Its efforts to build and militarize outposts in the South China Sea endanger the free flow of trade, threaten the sovereignty of other nations, and undermine regional stability (US, 2017, p. 46). While the US takes no position on sovereignty issues within the contested sea, it does vigorously defend the freedom of navigation (as it interprets it), with Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs) being regularly undertaken to contest Chinese claims over the entire sea within the so-called “nine-dash line.”

Geography, not Economics

In the 21st century, as in the 16th century, the interests of major powers in the Philippines tends not to be focused on the resources of the country, or the economic relations the powers have with the archipelago. The Philippines is not a small country, ranking 13th in the world in terms of population, but its economy is only 39th or so. China and America could (and do) engage in trading relations or a trade war with no reference to the Philippines. American interest in the Philippines has shifted over recent years. Since the launch of the global war on terrorism after the 9/11 attack in the US, considerable American attention was focused on the southern Philippines, wherein violent extremist elements linked first to Al Qaeda and later to the Islamic State were countered by American assistance to the Philippine government. But in the current climate, American attention has shifted to state competitors and away from non-state actors(Mogato, 2019). Whether the focus is the Asia-Pacific or the recently reemphasized Indo-Pacific, it is clear that the competitor in this region is China (as it is Russia in Europe and perhaps, the Middle East).

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Currently, the South China Sea is a prominent zone of contention involving China, the US, and the Philippines. But when we look at the map, we see a larger geographical reality, often called the “first island chain.” Between China and the broad reaches of the Pa- cific Ocean, there is a long series of islands that, depending on the point of view, either could bar China from the Pacific or could serve as bases for attack on China (in the line of the original fanciful Spanish colonial The “first island chain” perimeter was derived from dream). Japan, Taiwan, “Asia’s balance of power: China’s military rise,” and and the Philippines are “China’s military rise: The dragon’s new teeth.” The Economist, April 7, 2012. (Suid-Afrikaanse. (2012). all militarily supported Creative Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/ by the US, the largest index.php?curid=19030546. economy in the world. China, the second largest economy, must deal with this geographic reality no matter what intentions it may have. But the American interest in the same geographic fact is clear, and is linked to America’s stance in the East China Sea, the Taiwan Straits, and the South China Sea. One of the purposes of the 2014 EDCA would be to pre-position American equipment and supplies in facilities on Philippine bases. Depending on the emphases mutually agreed upon by the Philippines and the US, these could be used for HADRor in the event of an incident in the South China Sea. Recently, the US reiterated that any attack on Philippine forces in the area would trigger the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty, which is still in effect even after the lapse in 1992 of the Bases Treaty (De Castro, 2019). However, it is not clear that the current Philippine administration is interested in facilitating American access to the bases for this purpose (as opposed to a less controversial HADR focus).

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Conclusion

The US does vital geographic strategic interests in the Philippines vis-à-vis China which provides the Philippines with some leeway to engage in the kind of hedging behavior possible for small powers, where major powers are played off against each other. The pivot of the current Philippine administration to China may have increased the incentive of the US to make its position clear on the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty. It is probably not a coincidence that in late 2018, after decades of effort, the bells of Balangiga, a war booty retained by US forces after the Philippine- American War, were finally restored to their original church in Samar. So, by virtue of its geographical position on the globe, the Philippines is on the front line of a new great power competition that looms over the next decades. This may be an uncomfortable spot to be, but this is the neighborhood in which the country is fated to be located.

References

Allison, Graham. (2017). Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap. Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Cooley, Alexander. (2008). Base Politics: Democratic Change and the U.S. Military Overseas. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. De Castro, Renato Cruz. (2019). “Rendering the Mutual Defense Treaty into ‘scrap paper.” BusinessWorld. Retrieved from https://www.bworldonline.com/ rendering-the-mutual-defense-treaty-into-scrap-paper/. Gordon, Peter, and Morales, Juan José. (2017). The Silver Way: China, Spanish America, and the Birth of Globalisation, 1565-1815. Melbourne: Penguin. Kugler, Jacek. (2011). “Special Issue: Power Transitions.” International Interactions, vol. 38, no. 5. McCoy, Alfred W. (2016). “Circles of Steel, Castles of Vanity: The Geopolitics of Military Bases on the South China Sea.” Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 75, no. 4. Mogato, Manny. (2019). “Balikatan: US shifts gears from counterterrorism to great power competition.” Rappler. Retrieved from https://www.rappler. com//thought-leaders/227492-analysis-us-shifts-gears-counterrorism-great- power-competition-balikatan-2019. Rood, Steven. (2017). “@RealDonaldTrump, meet Du30.” In Wesley, Michael. (Ed). The Trump Administration’s First 100 Days: What Should Asia Do? Canberra: The Australian National University College of Asia and the Pacific. US National Security Strategy. (2017). Retrieved from https://www.whitehouse. gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/NSS-Final-12-18-2017-0905.pdf.

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Fan Dai

Philippines-China Relations and China’s Image in the Philippines: A View from a Chinese Scholar

Introduction

s someone who has experienced the honeymoon stage between China Aand the Philippines during the Arroyo administration, as well as the challenging days of the Benigno S. Aquino III administration, I have never been so worried about the current relations between our two countries. Though it was the best time since 2013 for China and the Philippines to cooperate, resentment, abomination, and disappointment are still very populated among Filipinos. This author, combined with his personal experience in the Philippines, will explore China’s image in the Philippines over the past 20 years and the reasons behind such sentiments.

The Philippines in the Eyes of a Chinese Scholar: Personal Experience

I had further immersion about the Philippines as a nation when I went to the University of the Philippines (UP) Asian Center as a visiting research fellow funded by the Philippine government from 2007-2008. However, even before that year and over the past 10 years, I often go back and forth from the Philippines to China; I make it a point to visit the Philippines every year for my research. What I gained from doing research about the Philippines not only benefitted my career but I also formed friendship both with Filipinos (Pinoy) and the Chinese Filpinos (Tsinoy). During my time at UP, I had a joyful time. I still remember when a couple invited me to spend Christmas with them in their house at UP Teacher’s Village, and to my delight, they prepared many Filipino food.

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I also remember in 2015, my students, who also went to the Philippines with me to do research, and I were invited by a Pinoy kuya for a drink of beer at Victory bus station. Kuya cleaned the plastic cup first before pouring the beer for us. His gesture actually moved me, he was very kind. My experiences in the Philippines were not always good. I was threatened by a taxi driver to pay extra fees before I could drop off. Many Chinese even experienced worse. My colleague, for example, went to Manila to do research in 2018. She was offered a mango induced with sedation drugs. She ended up loosing all her valuables and belongings and had to stay in a hospital for two days. Despite all these sad and bad experiences, my perception of the Philippines and its people never changed. The Philippines and its people for me are always warm, kind, and friendly. Despite some problems like corruption, traffic jams (my biggest headache), and a few cultural differences, all these reasons did not deter many Chinese still willing to live in the Philippines. Although some people may ask why? The answer is simple. Because first, it is wrong to judge a country based from a few bad experiences. Some misfortunes I encountered in the Philippines might also be common in other countries, including China. Second, it is unfair to only see the negative side while ignoring the good side. If my heart is filled with only prejudice, arrogance, superiority, and something like that, I might view the Philippines as a desperate third world country. However, if I look at the Philippines with goodwill and passion in my heart, I may learn to accept its current situation and understand the differences between China and the Philippines and its people. Being objective and neutral about the current situation of Philippines-China relation is very important. As a scholar, I believe it is my duty to inform the Chinese people, without any exaggeration or bias, about the good and bad of the Philippines. In many instances, I was criticized as being pro-Philippines for “defending” or speaking up for the Philippines to lighten up a Chinese misconception. In the same manner, the misbehavior of a Chinese individual should not be taken as representation of all the Chinese people, or that of the Chinese government. It is not fair to point finger and blame all the problems to the Chinese or Philippine governments, or hate all Chinese or all Filipinos because of some bad eggs in the basket. There will always be some isolated incidences that neither governments have control over. The news about the Chinese lady who threw toufu drink to the Filipino policeman last February spread among the Chinese media; the Chinese readers and listeners of the news

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broadcasts condemned the act of the Chinese lady 100 percent.1 What we are talking here is not about race but universal common values. I am sure whether the culprit was Chinese, Filipino, American, or Japanese or whichever race, the point here is the act of being rude and disrespectful, and it is universally condemned. It disappoints me reading some articles which purely criticized China and the Chinese without facts or evidence and based solely on prejudice and bias. It saddens me that some of the media ignore the sincerity of China’s contributions and its intention to help; they even try to paint a bad picture for both countries, misleading a lot of Filipinos, eroding bilateral ties between the two countries, and diminishing a supposedly strong Philippines- China relationship. I am not saying that all is perfect and I can understand the frustration and resentment some Filipinos have toward engaging with China. There are some instances that even I myself agree with Filipinos opinion of China, but what bothers me is the many opposition Filipinos have toward President Duterte’s pro-China policy. China and the Philippines have gone through unfriendly times since 2013, and it could have benefited the Philippine national interest more had this barrier been eliminated. This is what the present government is trying to do. This is the best time for the Philippines and China to cooperate and work together for the progress of its nation and its people. So, I appeal to everyone to be opend-minded, not focus on the bad side, and avoid any pre-existing notion and prejudice. International relations should be promoted by reasons and high skills rather than by emotion and prejudice. However, the present bilateral relations are suffering from many problems and the worst problem, I think, is the deep distrust of the Filipinos in China.

China’s Image in the Philippines: Data Analysis

The Social Weather Station (SWS), a Philippine pollster organization, since 1994, has been releasing a series of yearly surveys of Filipinos’ trust in many countries such as Japan, Australia, China, and the United States. Given that survey data, we were able to analyze Filipinos’ attitudes toward the major powers over the past two decades from a historical point of view.

1 I was told by a friend who met the “toufu lady” that the story about the widespread toufu girl incident was actually not as simple as the media reported.

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According to the SWS data, the Filipinos’ net trust in America is generally more than 50 percent since 1994, with the exception of 2005 and 2006 (see Fig. 1). On the other hand, Filipinos’ trust in China is only generally positive in 2002, 2007, 2010-2011, that is, more people trust China than those who do not trust China. Further, Filipinos also have more net trust in Japan and Australia than China.

Fig. 1. Yearly net trust in the US and China 1994-2019.*

Fig. 2. Filipino’s Yearly Trust in the US, 1994-2019.

* Annual data taken from the average of all research data of this year. Survey data of the US from 1997-1998 is not available; survey data of China in 1998, 2001, 2003, 2004, and 2006 is also not available. Social Weather Station. Retrieved from https://www.sws.org. ph/downloads/media_release/pr20190416%20-%20SWR2019-I%20Trust%20in%20 Countries%20(special%20report).pdf.

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Fig. 3. Filipino’s yearly trust in China 1994-2019. On Nov. 1, 2005, a Filipina girl was gang-raped by five American Marines from visiting forces at Subic Bay Freeport. This case caught media attention and sparked widespread anger among Filipinos and the immediate large-scale demonstrations against the US. In this regard, Filipino’s distrust in the US increased and the trust from 2005 to 2006 went down but still remains over 50 percent.2 Except 2005 (with 23 percent little trust) and 2006 (with 18 percent little trust), Filipinos’ distrust in the US is always below 15 percent (see Fig. 2). These data itself, to great extent, demonstrates Filipinos’ real passion for the US. On the contrary, Filipinos’ trust in China always remains at the very low level. In 2010, the much trust reached 40 percent, the climax over the past two decades, and year 2007 and 2011 also got 36 percent much trust, respectively (see Fig. 3). All these relatively high trust ratings are related with the Arroyo administration. Even before 1995, the first Mischief Reef standoff between China and the Philippines, much trust only marked 24 percent. In 2015, little trust reached 61 percent, climax over the past two decades, with 18 percent much trust, another valley bottom beside 1995. Because of the relative lag of policy effect, since the revival of Philippines-China relations when President Duterte took into power in 2016, much trust is supposed to rise while little trust to go down. We found that much trust in China still remains low at level while little trust at high level, which is not our initial expectation.

2“American soldier jailed for rape in Philippines.” The Guardian. Retrieved from https:// www.theguardian.com/world/2006/dec/04/usa.philippines.

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To sum up, regarding the relations between the Philippines and the US, no matter what happens to the bilateral relations between the Philippines and the US, the Filipinos will maintain trust in the US as whole though their perception of the US is still subject to influence of emergencies like rape case in 2005. Regarding the relations between China and the Philippines, no matter what China has done to improve its relations with the Philippines, basically one-fifth of the Filipinos always hold little trust attitudes toward China even during the best season of bilateral relations during the Arroyo regime. The second feature of China-Philippines relations is that nearly 20 percent of Filipinos always hold much trust in China and another 20 percent always hold “unknown” attitude even in 1995 and 2015, the most challenging times of bilateral relations because of the South China Sea disputes. The third features of China-Philippines relations is that the bilateral relation is week, fragile, and vulnerable to influence of emergencies like South China Sea and other issues like illegal workers and online gambling.

Discussions

The above analysis based on SWS data describes Filipinos’ overall pro- American tendency and their long-time distance from China. Then how to understand Filipinos’ perception of the US and China? Generally speaking, Filipinos’ pro-Western culture and deep-rooted prejudice against China largely shape Filipinos’ attitudes toward the US and China. Of course, problems between China and the Philippines, such as the South China Sea conflict, also greatly affected the trust of Filipino society in China. In addition, domestic political competition in the Philippines, as well as biased media reports, also contributed to the deterioration of China’s image over the past few years. First, the Philippines, though geographically located in East Asia, is exposed to Western culture influence for the long time. This shaped the Filipino identity to the US and also affected their perception of China. Apart from their traditional friendship formed since the end of the 19th century, Filipino society has a very close interaction with America, there are plenty of Filipinos working or settling down in the US, which constitutes the basis of Philippine friendship with the US. According to the data of the Commission on Filipino Overseas in 2013, there are 3,535,678 Filipinos living in the US, the most welcomed destination for overseas

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Filipino.3 Moreover, as English-speaking country, the Philippine society is exposed to English media and western culture, which also imperceptibly shape Filipinos’ world outlook and ideology, as well as their perception and judgement of other countries. Take the Filipino elite as an example. Many Filipino elites are educated in the West, thus, tend to accept some concepts like freedom and democracy in the West. Many Filipinos are even very proud of their American-style democracy and have western prejudices against China, regarding China as a country that lacks freedom and human rights.4 Not to mention the fact that many Filipinos do not know China at all, and just simply accept the knowledge about China disseminated by English or western media, without their own independent judgement. Second, the Philippine military force has always been alert to China. On the one hand, the Philippine military and the US military have always maintained close relations, including bilateral military exercises, military personnel exchanges, military assistance, consultation mechanisms, and so on. The military of the two countries has a variety of institutional ties, two of which are the Visiting Forces Agreement and the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, which is not only the cornerstone of the stability of US-Philippine relations but also may offset efforts to improve relations between China and the Philippines. On the other hand, as the force to safeguard the national security of the Philippines, the Philippine military tends to look at Sino-Philippine relations from the perspective of national security and sees China as a challenge to the maritime security of the Philippines. Third, attacks by Philippine opposition forces on the current government’s policy toward China have also been an inducement to the continued downturn in China-Philippines relations and the deterioration of China’s image. The Philippines is a country with separate powers annd political families and forces holding power from central to local. With the exception of a small number of nationalists or independent scholars, most political competition is aimed at protecting personal or family interests and cracking down on political opponents.

3 Commission on Overseas Filipino. Retrieved from https://www.cfo.gov.ph/downloads/ statistics/global-mapping-of-overseas-filipinos.html. 4 For example, whenever this author joined a dialogue with Filipino counterparts mainly from the Philippine government, the first question I was asked was to explain the situation of China’s human rights.

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Therefore, some problems relating to China – the like South China Sea disputes, Belt and Road Initiative and China’s loans to the Philippines, illegal immigrants, Chinese tourists and so on – might be used as an excuse by some politicians in order to attack the Philippine government and force the latter to make concessions on its China policy. Further, the persistent quarrels, questions, attacks and so on in the media have undoubtedly made China-related issues the focus of public attention, and largely offset the Philippine government’s efforts to improve relations with China. On July 12, 2018, a large red banners that read “Welcome to the Philippines, Province of China” appeared hanging on various footbridges in Metro Manila. Duterte’s presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said enemies of the government are behind the tarpaulins.5 What is sad is that the photo of red banners were spread on social media and aggravated Filipinos’ anger toward China. On June 9, 2019, days before the Philippines marked its Independence Day, Filipino vendors were found selling Chinese flag at historic Luneta Park. This again sparked outrage among Filipinos. “Chinese flags being sold in Luneta! Are we really now a province of China? Digong (Duterte) is so great! Bravo!” Facebook user Martin Masado sarcastically wrote on his wall in English and Filipino.6 This case is suspected to humiliate the Duterte administration amid its improving ties with China. Fourth, the bad behavior of many Chinese citizens also exacerbated the “anti-China” sentiment among Filipino society. Since 2017, Philippine government agencies launched unprecedented investigations and conducted law enforcement actions against foreigners engaged in illegal business, illegal employment, illegal online betting, telecommunications fraud, and so on. Chinese citizens were found engaging in all the aforementioned illegal activities, and a large number of them were arrested and even deported. Philippines Bureau of Immigration (BI) records showed that Chinese nationals topped the list of the most number of deported foreigners from 2016 to 2018. A total of 1,510 Chinese nationals were sent back to China from 2016 to 2018. In 2016, 40 Chinese were deported, 1,248 in year

5 Philippines Star. Retrieved from https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2018/07/12/1832876/ banners-welcome-visitors-philippines-province-china#P1Rk83G2GyH3F7b5.99 6 “Chinese flags sold at Luneta before PH independence day.” ABS-CBN News, Jun 10 2019. Retrieved from https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/06/10/19/chinese-flags-sold-at- luneta-before-ph-independence-day.

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2017, and 222 from January to October in 2018.7 All these events were widely covered in all kinds of media in the Philippines; it also aroused widespread concern and repeated voices from the BI, Department of Labor and Employment, Philippine Congress, labor groups, and opposition forces, and finally stimulate Filipino’s anti-China sentiments. Fifth, the maritime dispute between China and the Philippines continues to stimulate the nerves of Philippine society regardless of Duterte’s friendly attitude toward China. Despite the turn-around in relations between China and the Philippines since 2016, the dispute over South China Sea is still pending. Reports and comments about the construction on islands in the South China Sea, “illegal fishing” of Chinese fishing vessels, and China’s enforcement of Filipino fishing vessels have repeatedly stimulated the sensitive nerves of Filipinos. According to the second quarter 2018 survey conducted by SWS, 81 percent of the respondents said that “it is not right to do nothing about China’s intrusion in claimed territories;” 80 percent want the military, particularly the Navy, to be strengthened; 65 percent “are aware of China’s abuse of Filipino fishermen;” and 43 percent said “the government’s non- protest of the actions of China is not treachery.”8 Ridiculously, because of the lack of trust in China among the Filipino people, public communication in this age of multimedia, like a double-edged sword, is playing a role that is actually not conducive in constructing and disseminating some positive image of China. We Are Social and Hootsuite released its annual digital report which gives a global overview of the number of online and social media users, the amount of time people spend online, and the most popular social applications we use. According to its report, in the Philippines, time spent online daily reached 10 hours and two minutes in 2018, the highest in the world. About 76 million Filipinos are using social media, and 75 million of which are on Facebook with four hours and 12 minutes time spending. For mobile phone social media use, 67 percent of online Filipinos access social media on their phone, keeping social media as an influential

7 Patinio, Ferdinand. (2018). “Chinese tops list of deported foreigners.” Philippines New Agency. Retrieved from https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1055408. 8 Social Weather Station Special Report. July 14, 2018; Social Weather Station Special Report, July 20, 2018.

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force.9 Filipinos are also used to watching video on YouTube. Against this backdrop, videos or news that are unfriendly to China or are bad for China’s image spread quickly on social media.10 On the contrary, somefriendly voices toward China have not been disseminated widely. More importantly, in the post-truth era, the public is tends to believe in their own personal judgment, which is often influenced by prejudice and incomplete information, rather than choose to believe in the truth. Given that, no matter what efforts the Chinese and Philippine governments make to improve relations between them, there will always be some people who choose to ignore the truth and follow their own judgment. As mentioned above, there are always nearly 25 percent Filipinos holding little trust in China since 1994. For example, as mentioned above, some Filipinos are inclined to link the wrongdoings of Chinese citizens to the Chinese government, or ignore the goodwill of the Chinese government, and so on, even make a negative or distorted interpretation of the same thing.

Policy Reflection

The above analysis seems to show a desperate prospect of Sino-Philippine relations. However, if we have a goodwill of promoting Sino-Philippine friendship in mind, intellectuals, educators, social elites, and politicians should take the responsibility to educate and guide its people on how to know the real China, rather than misleading the people and the country for their own benefit. People-to-people exchange is very critical for the future bilateral relations. This author finds that Filipinos who have ever studied in China usually have a more rational and balanced, though not always friendly, attitude toward China because they have more knowledge about China. In this regard, if China can open up its labor market to the Philippines and bring English teachers or overseas Filipino workers through which China

9 Gonzales, Gelo. “Filipinos spend most time online, on social media worldwide.” (2019). Retrieved from https://www.rappler.com/technology/news/222407-philippines-online- use-2019-hootsuite-we-are-social-report. 10 Take the recent ship sinking incident that took place on June 12, 2019 as an example, a cartoon titled “How a Chinese ship sank Filipino fishing vessel Gem-Ver in West PH Sea” is available on Youtube and has 33,000 views; a video interview, “China has record of sinking foreign vessels, expert warns,” has 27,000 views.

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and the Philippines will be able to form broader contacts, it will be a strong link to maintain the future relations between China and the Philippines. For the Philippine government and policy makers, a stable and strategic judgement of China, as little as possible influenced by ideology, emergencies, and even emotions is vital. That is, what elements constitute the national interest of the Philippines? What kind of China policy does the Philippines need? How to maximize its national interests when engaging with China?

References

Ang See, Teresita. “Migration Trends and their Socio-economic Implications: The Ethnic Chinese Community.” Paper presented at the conference on “In Search of a China Strategy: Unpacking the Bilateral and Regional Dynamics of Philippines-China Relations,” held at UP Asian Center on August 17-18, 2016. Ang See, Teresita, and Sta. Romana, Chito. (Eds). (2013). Philippines-China Relations: Sailing beyond Disputed Wates. Chinese Studies Journal, vol. 10, Philippine Association for Chinese Studies. Ang See, Teresita. (2013). Chinese in the Philippines: Problems and Perspectives, vol. 4. Kaisa Para Sa Kaunlaran, Inc. Go, Julian, and Foster, Annel L. (Eds). (2005). The American Colonial State in the Philippines: Global Perspectives. Anvil Publishing House. Banlaoi, Rommel C. (2012). Philippines-China Security Relations: Current Issues and Emerging Concerns. Yuchengco Center, De La Salle University.

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François-Xavier Bonnet

The Philippines-China Relations: A European/French Perspective*

Introduction

he South China Sea conundrum is a very sensitive matter in Tthe Philippines. There is not a single day without new articles published in the national newspapers on this question or discussed on radio and television. This important flow of information tends to overwhelm and confuse the readers, polarizing the society between those perceived as pro-China and those considered as pro-United States (US). This China-US rivalry for dominance in the region for trade and military reasons overshadows the potential interest of other international powers like the European Union (EU) as an organization and individual state members. If the EU has no independent foreign policy per se, individual state members like France can pursue their own diplomacy in the region. In this paper, we will show that as a maritime power with a huge exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and a significant presence in the Indo-Pacific area, France follows keenly the developments in the South China Sea. It supports the position of the EU in favor of the judgement of The Hague on July 12, 2016 but also of a more peaceful relation between the Philippines and China. The freedom of navigation on and undersea and flights over the South China Sea is the main driver of the EU interests.

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France and Its Overseas Territories: A Huge Exclusive Economic Zone

On November 4, 2018, the population of the island of New Caledonia in the Pacific voted, in a referendum, against their independence and to stay under the sovereignty of France. New Caledonia is one of several overseas territories of France scattered in all the oceans of the planet. All these overseas territories totaled a land area of only126,550 sq. km but generate a huge EEZ of 11 million sq. km (40 times the EEZ of France metropolitan).1 The French Polynesian Islands in the Pacific Ocean alone generates an EEZ of 5 million sq. km for a small land area of 4000 sq.km. New Caledonia, with a land area of 19,000 sq.km can generate an EEZ of 2 million sq. km.2 Thus, France, with a land area of 543,945 sq. km, has the second largest EEZ in the world after the US. In fact, 62 percent of the EEZ of France is coming from the Pacific Ocean and 24 percent from the Indian Ocean.3 With this huge oceanic domain, France shares 39 maritime boundaries with 30 different countries. Among the 39 maritime boundaries, 34 are in the overseas territories. The Wallis and Futuna archipelago in the Pacific, for example, is the oversea territory which generates the most number of maritime boundaries. Thus, this archipelago shares a boundary with five other countries (Fiji, Tokelau, Samoa, Tonga, and Tuvalu). Likewise, New Caledonia shares four maritime boundaries (Solomon Island, Vanuatu, Fiji, Australia) and French Polynesia has three of them (Kiribati, United Kingdom, Cook Island).4

A Significant French Presence in the Indo-Pacific Region

As a maritime power, endowed with a vast EEZs, particularly in the Indo-Pacific region, France’s primary obligation is to protect its territories

1 Taglioni, François. (2007). «Les petits espaces insulaires au cœur des revendications frontalières maritimes dans le monde .» L’Espace politique. vol. 1, no. 1. Retrieved from https://journals. openedition.org/espacepolitique/732. 2 Taglioni. (2007). L’Espace politique. 3 DGRIS. (2016). “France and Security in the Asia-Pacific.” Defense Department Paris, p. 6. 4 Taglioni. (2007). L’Espace politique.

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and population: more than 500,000 inhabitants and more than one million inhabitants are living in the overseas territories of the Pacific and Indian oceans, respectively.5 It also has the duty to protect its expatriates in the countries of the Asia Pacific whose number has increased by 220 percentover the last 20 years to exceed 140, 000 in 2017 (eight percent of the total number of French expatriates in the world). More than 30, 000 French expatriates are living in China and close to 4,000 in the Philippines.6 To protect its overseas territories as well as monitor its EEZ, 8,000 soldiers are located throughout the whole area: 4,500 in the Indian Ocean and 2, 800 in the Pacific Ocean and 700 sailors in deployment. In the Pacific Ocean, the French armed forces in New Caledonia and French Polynesia operate two surveillance frigates, four patrol vessels, two multi- mission ships, five maritime surveillance aircrafts, four tactical transport aircrafts and seven helicopters.7 Moreover, France maintains a network of 18 resident and non-resident defense attachés in 33 countries in Asia and Oceania that develop the bilateral defense cooperation. The country participates in the South Pacific Defense Minister’s Meeting (SPDMM) and the Shangri-La-Dialogue, and through the EU, indirectly participates in the ASEAN Regional Forum. As a maritime power, France is also involved in many regional fora specialized on maritime issues in the Indian and Pacific oceans.8

The EU and the Spratly Islands

Thus, this significant presence in the Indo-Pacific region sets France apart from the other member states of the EU, inasmuch as France is an important supplier of military equipment to several Asian countries like Singapore, Malaysia, India, and Australia.Nevertheless, despite this unique position, France supports a joint EU policy toward this region and more particularly when it comes to developments in the South China Sea.

5 DGRIS. (2016). “France and Security in the Asia Pacific,”p. 6. 6 2017. “Quel est le nombre de Français vivant en Asie?” Paris-Singapore. Retrived from https://paris-singapore.com/nombre-francais-vivre-asie. 7 DGRIS.(2016). “France and Security in the Asia Pacific,”p.12. 8 DGRIS.(2016). “France and Security in the Asia Pacific,”p. 12

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The first statement issued by the EU on the South China Sea dated March 11, 2016 criticized the actions of China:

The EU is committed to maintaining a legal order for the seas and oceans based upon the principles of international law, as reflected notably in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). This includes the maintenance of maritime safety, security, and cooperation, freedom of navigation and overflight. While not taking a position on claims to land territory and maritime space in the South China Sea, the EU urges all claimants to resolve disputes through peaceful means, to clarify the basis of their claims, and to pursue them in accordance with international law including UNCLOS and its arbitration procedures.9

The second and last official statement by the EU on the issue of the South China Sea was published, following the ruling by The Hague tribunal. Federica Mogherini, the EU’s high representative, issued a declaration stressing the need for the parties to resolve the dispute in accordance with international law.10 According to some observers, this declaration took Chinese leaders by surprise, as they did not expect the EU to be able to find the necessary cohesion to issue such a declaration.11 Beijing tried to block the initiative by putting pressure on some EU member states that received significant Chinese investments. In the end, the declaration’s final version was watered down by Greece, Hungary, and Croatia, which did not want to send too strong message to Beijing at a time of growing economic ties with the Asian giant. Since then, the EU, as an organization, has not issued any other statement on that matter except for expressing its availability to facilitate ASEAN-China dialogue on devising a code of conduct for the South China Sea.

9 “Declaration by the High Representative on behalf of the EU on Recent Developments in the South China Sea.” (2016). European Council. Council of the European Union. Retrieved from https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2016/03/11/hr- declaration-on-bealf-of-eu-recent-developments-south-china-sea/. 10 “Declaration by the High Representative on behalf of the EU on the Award rendered in the Arbitration between the Republic of the Philippines and the People’s Republic of China.” (2016). European Council. 11 Casarini, Nicola. “Beijing’s Ambitions in the South China Sea: How Should Europe Respond?” Paper presented at the T.wai-IAI seminar on “Assessing Asian Regionalism: Between Functional Cooperation and Geostrategic Competition” held in Turin on April 12, 2018. Istituto Affari Internazionali. Retrieved from https://www.iai.it/en/pubblicazioni/ beijings-ambitions-south-china-sea-how-should-europe-respond.

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However, individual member states decided to challenge the position of China in the South China Sea, notably in the area of freedom of navigation in and around the Spratlys and Paracels islands. France’s former Defense minister Jean-Yves Le Drian declared at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore in 2016 that Paris would encourage the EU to undertake “regular and visible” patrols in the area.12 It is not known how many of these patrols were done so far by France and the United Kingdom (UK) as they are not as publicized as the Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs) conducted by the US Navy.13 Nevertheless, in early 2018, France and the UK conducted a joint freedom of navigation patrol through Mischief Reef, Subi Reef and Fiery Cross in the Spratly Islands.14 These three reefs are the main Chinese military strongholds in the Spratlys. Thus, some EU member states and the US are trying to enforce, symbolically, the ruling by The Hague tribunal in the case between the Philippines and China.

Why are the Spratly Islands So Important for the EU?

Historically, France had staked a claim, at the beginning of the 20th century, to the Paracels and Spratly islands. Challenged mostly by Japan and China over the Paracels and by Japan, China and the Philippines over the Spratly Islands,15 France has never been able to develop these islands

12 Panda, Ankit. “French defense minister to urge EU South China Sea patrols.” (2016). The Diplomat. Retrieved from https://thediplomat.com/2016/06/french-defense-minister- to-urge-eu-south-china-sea-patrols/. 13 According to Eric Frecon, professor at the Naval Academy of Brest in France, the French Navy is doing around two operations every year since 2016. The frigates are navigating just outside the 12 nm of the territorial seas. The US FONOPs are penetrating the 12 nm. 14 Luc, Tuan Anh. “Are France and the UK here to stay in the South China Sea?” (2018). The Diplomat. Retrieved from https://thediplomat.com/2018/09/are-france-and-the-uk- here-to-stay-in-the-south-china-sea/. 15 Elsewhere we have shown that the Philippines, under the American colonial rule, claimed the Spratly Islands in 1933 and the Scarborough Shoal in 1937. But the US State Department did not accept the claim of the Philippines over the Spratlys. During the same period, Chinese officials and civil society were confused and thought that the Spratlys and Paracels were the same archipelago. See Bonnet, François-Xavier. (2012). “Geopolitics of Scarborough Schoal.” Institut de Recherche sur l’Asie du Sud-Est Contemporaine (Research Institute on Contemporary Southeast Asia). IRASEC’s Discussion Paper No. 14. Retrieved from http://www.irasec.com/ouvrage34.

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and consolidate its titles over them. Nevertheless, the French government relinquished officially its title over the Paracelsto South Vietnam in 1956 but never did it for the Spratly Islands. Beyond historical and legal interests over the archipelagos of the South China Sea, the freedom of navigation above and on that sea is a key matter for the member states of the EU. Researches by the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative and Center for Strategic and International Studies showed that around US$3.4 trillion worth of goods passed through the South China Sea in 2016.16 The data reflected a low level of dependency of key European countries over the South China Sea for their trade. In fact, between eight percent and 11percentof total trade of countries like the UK, France, Italy, and Germany passed by the South China Sea in 2016.17 If the European countries are vigilant over the freedom of navigation above and on the sea, a close attention is also given to the freedom of navigation below the sea level. The Navy headquarters of the European countries are much aware of a special characteristic of the Spratly islands which is not very well known, as it is a sensitive matter. The literature on the Spratly Islands would explain that the main causes of the dispute would be the control of natural resources like oil and gas and fishing activities, sovereignty rights, and a large EEZ. These factors are, of course, very important. The same literature, however, forgets the key role of the Spratlys for submarine warfare. In fact, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) classified in the 1980s the Spratly Islands as a “grey area” or “area of special concern.”18 Few places in the world have this kind of classification. During the same period, the Philippine government published a similar perception on the Spratlys (Kalayaan group of islands) from the Defense Ministry in 1982:

The area has never been adequately surveyed or mapped, but it is known to contain many islands, banks and reefs, shoals and cays separated by deep passages. If a hostile nation can map the area to a degree which will enable navigation of submerged ballistic missile submarines without

16 CSIS. (2017). “How much trade transits the South China Sea?” China Power Project. Retrieved from https://chinapower.csis.org/much-trade-transits-south-china- sea/?utm_content=buffer2dfa4&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_ campaign=buffer. 17 CSIS. (2017). “How much trade transits the South China Sea?” China Power Project. 18 Information given to me by Jean-François Bonnet, former director of Agence France Press in Manila.

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danger of running aground, that particular nation can station Polaris type submarines in the island group and be able to control or threaten an area within a radius of 4,000 km, containing a 1/3 of the world’s population, including the whole ASEAN. The area’s bathymetry makes submarine detection, hence, counteraction virtually impossible.19

In fact, it is highly likely that the first journey through the Spratly Islands, by a nuclear-powered submarine took place in April 1972. The USS Sculpin, directed by Captain Harry Mathis, had a mission to track the movements of Vietnamese fishing boats. These boats, loaded with weapons and ammunition, were leaving Hainan Island (China) and traveling through the South China Sea to avoid the American coastal blockade of Vietnam before unloading their cargoes further south. Their routes took them through the Spratlys before reaching Vietnam. The USS Sculpin’s journey in the Spratlys, known to mariners as the “Dangerous Ground,” was described as follows:

One more challenge was that the trawler was heading south, right through the Dangerous Ground. On charts of the South China Sea, an area about 180 nautical miles wide and 300 miles long is simply labeled Dangerous Ground. Our charts had one track of soundings through that area – taken in 1885. We assessed that the terrain was fairly level, but the depth was 200 feet or less in most of this area. So, we were in a position of running up to 20 knots in 200 feet of water, with between 30 to 80 feet under the keel at that high speed… As the trawler headed south, she vectored a little to the east and went into an area in the Dangerous Ground where we couldn’t go. Up to then, although we were in the dangerous area, we felt secure in knowing the bottom was fairly level. But now she went into an area that was littered with rocks, shoals, and shipwrecks.20

It is highly probable that the USS Sculpin’s journey in the Spratlys had other motivations than simply following a fishing boat used for smuggling weapons. In fact, an airplane P-3 Orion escorted the submarine. Our

19 The Kalayaan Islands. (1982). Series 1. Monograph no. 4. Prepared by the Ministry of Defense, secretariat to the Cabinet Committee on the Law of the Sea Treaty, p.11. 20 Larson,Charles R. (2008). “The Sculpin’s lost mission: A nuclear submarine in the Vietnam war.” Naval History Magazine. The US Naval Institute.22:1. Retrieved from http://www.usni.org/node/3692

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hypothesis is that the US Navy would not have risked using a nuclear submarine for so little. It is more reasonable to imagine that the Sculpin had either the mission to collect more scientific data on the Dangerous Ground or to test the operability of older scientific researches. An interesting detail given by Admiral Larson in the excerpt above show how the Spratlys are still shrouded “in secrecy;”21 on the charts used to pass through the Dangerous Ground, the admiral mentioned only one track of soundings dating of 1885. Thus, if we believe the writer, the crew of the nuclear submarine would have been much less equipped in charts and maps of the area than the crews of submarines during the second World War. In fact, through numerous secret surveys made by British, Japanese, and American navies since the 1920s, it showed that the maritime space of the Spratlys is deep and structured by internal sea-laneswith two main axis (north-south and east-west),22 (see Map 1). The choice of military occupation of these geological features seems to follow the logic of control of the internal sea-lanes.23 Thus, if in 1956, Taiwan occupied the main island of Itu Aba, Vietnamese forces would garrisoned islands and reefs which are controlling the Western entrance of the east-west sea-lane. The Filipinos, at the end of the 1960s, favored the control of the northern part of the north-south sea-lane. China, arriving last in the conquest of the Spratly Islands, had no choice but to take control ofthe reefs. By occupying Fiery Cross Reef in 1988, Chinese forces could control movements in the western part of the east-west sea-lane. By taking control of the Mischief Reef in the heart of the Philippines’ claimed EEZ in 1995, the Chinese could monitor and even interfere with the Filipinos along the north-south sea-lane. The new Chinese reclamation works since 2010 allow the reinforcement of the Chinese presence along the north-south sea-lane (Tizard Bank and Union Bank) and east-west sea-lane (London Reef). The strategic positions of Chinese troops in the Spratlys are strong enough to blockade the resupply of the Philippines garrisons, mostly located in the northern part of the archipelago. Moreover, the warehouses built on the three main reefs (Fiery Cross, Subi, and Mischief)

21 Admiral Larson mentioned that his text was redacted by the US Navy Intelligence before being published in 2008. 22 Hancox, David, and Prescott, Victor. (1999). Secret Hydrographic Surveys in the Spratly Islands. London. 23 Bonnet, François-Xavier. (2016). “The Spratlys: A Geopolitics of Secret Maritime Sea-Lanes.” AMTI. Retrieved from https://amti.csis.org/spratlys-geopolitics-secret-maritime-sea-lanes/.

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can accommodate bombers of type H6-K.24 If these bombers can’t reach yet the French overseas territories of the Pacific, they could soon reach the northern part of Australia.25

Conclusion

The warming ties between the Philippines and China are positively perceived by the EU, as it increases peace and stability in the region, in the context of an elaboration of a code of conduct. Arguably, the Philippines’ request for international arbitration in 2012 had the unintended consequence of accelerating China’s programs of island-building. These Chinese activities highlighted the importance of controlling the internal maritime sea-lanes of the Spratlys. These internal sea-lanes have long been kept secret although they are of crucial strategic importance. Their control would allow a maritime power to directly threaten an important part of the world. For the first time in the history of the SpratlyIslands, one power, China, could take control of the area. The European countries are challenging China with their freedom of navigation operations, not only to protect their trade and economic interests in the region but also because of their knowledge of the strategic importance of these islands either for submarines operations or air combat. In the words ofa European diplomat, “We observe, we rejoice when there is a positive step, but we are not naïve, we remain vigilant and we monitor very carefully the events.”

24 “China Lands First Bomber on South China Sea Island.” (2018). AMTI.Retrieved from https://amti.csis.org/china-lands-first-bomber-south-china-sea-island/. 25 Communications with Carl Thayer.

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Map 1. Map of Dangerous Ground (Spratlys) and Its Secret Sea-Lanes

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Lucio Blanco Pitlo III

Major Power Rivalry and Condominium of Power: The Future of US-China Strategic Relations*

Introduction

he interaction of the United States and China will have far reaching Tconsequences for East Asia. While rivalry characterized much of the present US-China ties, opportunities for a condominium remain. China’s rise and power shifts in Asia led renowned China expert David Shambaugh to outline the following seven possible future models for US- China strategic ties: 1) hegemonic system, 2) major power rivalry/power transition, 3) “hubs and spokes,” 4) concert of powers, 5) condominium of power, 6) normative community, and 7) complex interdependence.1 This paper aims to describe and to critique these seven models. It argues that the most likely model that can approximate US-China relations in the region is a mix of models 2 and 5. This paper takes into account recent developments to explain why a mix of models 2 and 5 can depict the world’s most important bilateral relations in the future.

Hegemonic System According to Shambaugh, a hegemonic system, where China is the dominant power, can either be coercive or benign. He maintains that countries, under such a setup, can either be subsumed by or bandwagon

* Updated version of paper delivered at the international conference marking the 30th anniversary of Philippine Association for Chinese Studies held at Joy-Nostalg Hotel and Suites in Ortigas Center, Pasig City on December 2, 2017. 1 Shambaugh, David. (Ed). (2005). Power Shift: China and Asia’s New Dynamics Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 12-19.

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with China to protect themselves and their interests. The system can also manifest in a hierarchical model with China at the top, reviving the ancient tributary system. It assumes China’s desire for dominance and diminution of US regional power and influence and America’s eventual withdrawal from the region. Shambaugh, however, argues that China still does not constitute a pole that can magnet other countries around it. He maintains that China does not possess an appealing ideology, extensive economic assistance, extended deterrence and military protection, and international diplomatic support to constitute a hegemon. Although he is pessimistic about China’s potentials to be a hegemon, Shambaugh said elements of a potential Sino-centric hegemonic order continue to unfold. China rapidly demonstrates its desire and capacity to perform greater regional and global leadership roles. China’s recent initiatives like the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), “new Asian security concept,” “community of shared destiny for mankind,” and support for multipolar undertakings like BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) and the New Development Bank attest to this leadership aspiration. Recent Chinese leadership had gradually distanced from Deng Xiaoping’s “hide your strength, bide your time” mantra and have become bolder in taking the international limelight.2 The momentum for this leadership drive is only bound to accelerate under the third term of President Xi, an ardent champion of China’s desire for great power status.China officially eschews hegemony, but its economic wherewithal and increasing political influence no doubt cast a long shadow in the foreign policy calculus of many states. China, the world’s second largest economy, is now the largest trading partner to 124 countries dominating Asia, Australia, Africa, and Eastern Europe, whereas the US is the leading trade partner for 56 countries mostly from Western Europe and the Western Hemisphere. China is the world’s largest holder of foreign reserves, top US creditor, and is also the world’s largest manufacturer, merchandise exporter, assets acquirer, energy and commodities consumer, and outbound tourist market. It is also the world’s second largest outbound investor and spender

2 Clover, Charles. (2010). “Xi Jinping signals departure from low-profile policy.” Financial Times. Retrieved from https://www.ft.com/content/05cd86a6-b552-11e7-a398- 73d59db9e399; “Less biding and hidin.” (2010). The Economist. Retrieved from https:// www.economist.com/node/17601475.

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on research and development and is actively seeking out technology either through acquisitions or homegrown innovation. China continues to modernize its military, expand its power projection, and increasingly provide security goods abroad. It is the largest contributor of troops for UN peacekeeping missions among the five Permanent Security Council members and second largest financier of UN peacekeeping operations. China takes part in anti-piracy missions in the Indian Ocean, engaging neighbors in maritime and counterterrorism exercises, and is the world’s third largest arms exporter. It has donated arms to neighbors, like the Philippines, engaged in combating homegrown terrorism with increasing international links (e.g. battle to recapture Marawi from radical militants). China’s no-strings attached policy and non-intervention makes it the partner of choice for countries facing Western-imposed arms embargoes. China now has the means to become an economic hegemon. It also has the potentials to become a security hegemon but may not tread this path, not necessarily because it cannot but because of its traditional contempt for alliances as being directed to third parties. In the post-Cold War era, where fault lines no longer rests on ideology and populism and propensity to downplay human rights and institutional checks even among longtime democracies are emerging, China’s model is giving some leaders reason to pause and ponder. The success of China’s governance model – a curious mix of capitalist economy and state planning under authoritarian leadership – is making some non-democratic states contemplate postponing meaningful political reforms or decelerating their momentum. Furthermore, China provides diplomatic and political support to countries and leaderships facing Western-imposed sanctions or censure because of rights and governance issues. This includes pre-2019 military junta-led Thailand, the Philippines under the Duterte government for its violent war on drugs, former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak for corruption, and the Myanmar junta facing criticisms over the plight of ethnic Rohingyas. Nevertheless, while China may aspire to assume greater regional/global roles, it is arguable whether it desires to dominate. That said, I argue that the ingredients are already there should it decide to do so, hopefully as a benign hegemon. An increasing number of countries are now bandwagoning with China to obtain and sustain economic, as well as political and security benefits. Certain Chinese actions illustrate the manifest use of economic tools to serve political ends, notably to punish countries, which, in Beijing’s view, harms its interests. This include restricting rare earth exports to Japan in 2010 after

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a fishing incident in the East China Sea (ECS), curbing banana imports and canceling tourist visits to Philippines in the aftermath of the Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal standoff in 2012, and closure of Lotte department stores and canceling tourist visits to South Korea in 2017 after the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) deployment, among others. The building of artificial islands in the South China Sea (SCS) and its subsequent militarization while an arbitration case was ongoing (2013- 2016 Philippines vs. China case) also demonstrates that China’s toolkit is not solely confined to economic statecraft. Thus, a reconfigured regional system with China occupying the paramount position may exhibit elements of coercion. This emerging propensity to deploy economic and military coercion in regional flashpoints is unsettling, heightens regional anxieties and disrupts longstanding regional norms. For instance, the 2002 Declaration of Conduct of Parties in the SCS discouraged parties from occupying hitherto unoccupied features which China violated in 2013-2014 when it began building artificial islands and militarizing them. China’s influence is driving a wedge between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member countries and making consensus on issues that relate to China difficult. It undermines the promotion of China’s good neighborliness and peripheral diplomacy and creates discomfort to the notion of a Sino-centric system.

Major Power Rivalry/Power Transition This model portrays an inevitable clash between the dominant power (the US) and a rising power (China). Steeped in realist school, this zero- sum competition argues that power transitions are inherently unstable and conflict-prone. A variation is a bipolar balance-of-power model wherein both US and China will have roughly equal power to offset each other and keep the balance. Shambaugh argued that for this model to happen, China’s comprehensive national strength, particularly in the military domain, has to match that of the US, which he said is difficult to see in the near to medium term. He added that both powers also have to experience conflicting interests and policies over a wide range of regional and global issues, which he said, ran counter to the present cooperative relations. China’s comprehensive national strength continues to grow. Its economic rise since the reform and opening up was exponential, accounting for the most successful economic miracle and uplifting a record 800 million people

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out of poverty in three decades. The largest trade partner to 124 countries, including to most Asian countries, its tremendous capacity to provide economic goods – market access, investments, infrastructure finance, aid, inbound tourism – translates to political and diplomatic influence in the developing South and increasingly in developed economies as well, such as South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe. By one economic indicator, gross domestic product (GDP)purchasing power parity (PPP), China has already overtaken the US and forecasts have it that China will eventually surpass the US in actual GDP. Given this, it is not difficult to foresee a balance-of-power model along the lines of an economically strong China and a militarily strong US can take place. In peacetime, “power grows out of the barrel of a gun” is sidestepped by “he who has the economic means wins” and China seems to be capitalizing on this. Beijing can and has weaponized economics for political ends3 (e.g. closure of Lotte department stores and canceling tourist visits to South Korea in 2017 after the US THAAD deployment) and military options seem unable to address this. That said, China is not letting up on military modernization. China has the world’s second largest defense budget and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is the world’s largest standing military force with more than 2 million soldiers divided across five service branches, including a dedicated branch for missiles (Rocket Force) and space, cyber, and electronic warfare (Strategic Support Force). The country set a goal of having a world-class military by 2035. In his address to the CPC Congress in October 2017, President Xi also said, “our military must regard combat readiness as the goal for all its work and focus on how to win when it is called upon.”4 China’s investments in asymmetrical warfare (e.g. anti-satellite and hypersonic missiles), notably anti-access area-denial (e.g. anti-ship missiles, anti-submarine warfare aircraft), can make it costly and difficult for America to interfere in China’s maritime periphery.5 The country also has a robust nuclear weapons

3 Chellaney, Brahma. (2017). “China’s Weaponization of Trade.” Project Syndicate. Retrieved on April 10, 2018 from https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/china- weaponization-of-trade-by-brahma-chellaney-2017-07?barrier=accessreg. 4 Clover, Charles. (2017). “Xi Jinping signals departure from low-profile policy,”Financial Times. Retrieved on April 10, 2018 from https://www.ft.com/content/05cd86a6-b552- 11e7-a398-73d59db9e399. 5 Cordesman, Anthony H., and Kendall, Joseph. (2016). “How China Plans to Utilize Space for A2/AD in the Pacific.” The National Interest. Retrieved on April 10, 2018 from http:// nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/how-china-plans-utilize-space-a2-ad-the-pacific-17383.

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program and multiple delivery platforms. The construction of artificial islands in the contested SCS also expanded China’s power projection and extended its defense perimeter. China’s investments in electronic, space, cyber, and other dual-use technologies also challenge US longstanding post-Cold War dominance in these domains. In recent years, China is also increasing its overseas security footprint. It played an active role in anti-piracy missions in the Indian Ocean, sent peacekeepers in Africa, established its first overseas military base in Djibouti. PLA Navy ships were sighted in ports being built or financed by China across the strategic Indian Ocean. This undercuts the traditional unwritten regional dichotomy between US, providing security guarantees and hardware, and China, focusing on economic goods. China may not yet push the US out of the region, but its actions certainly diminishes America’s significance. US President Trump’s protectionism, preference for bilateralism and transactionalism do not help shore up American leadership appeal at a time when it is under serious strain. His isolationism and protectionism went in display in the US withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and imposition of tariffs not only to China, but also to allies and partners as well, like Canada, Japan, South Korea, and the European Union (EU). The US-China relations have both competitive and cooperative dimensions. Human rights, trade disputes, China’s expansive maritime claims and traditional support for North Korea are among the sources of friction, while cooperation for the environment, combatting transnational security threats such as piracy and financial crimes, counterterrorism, and denuclearization of the Korean peninsula are among the areas of convergence. Although relations seem relatively stable, perceptual or real changes in economic and military capacities and intentions cause tensions and, if not managed well, may led to rupture with serious global consequences. Tit-for-tat tariff impositions, for instance, inject a disruptive element in the relations, which hopefully can be put to rest through a negotiated settlement.

‘Hub and Spokes’ Model

This third model rests on the postwar security alliances established by the US with regional states, namely Japan, South Korea, Philippines, Thailand, and Australia. While not formal treaty allies, other East Asian states like Singapore also became active security partners in the system.

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The system ushered benefits for the region. The US security guarantees enabled allies and partners to focus on domestic security and economic development. However, although the system undergirded regional peace and stability for more than three decades, it was unable to gather all states under its umbrella. Shambaugh argued that the structure of the system is insufficient to create an inclusive regional security order. While China also benefited from this system, it also saw it as a tool to contain or constrain its rise. The US is the system’s hub and China’s eastern and maritime peripheral neighbors are the spokes. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, China, rightly or wrongly, saw the maintenance of the system as being directed to her. The US forward deployed assets and troops, which can interoperate with regional allies and partners, were seen as a threat too close to China’s doorstep. Hence, as China rises, its discomfort with this alliance system only grew. China began to spearhead the creation of alternative security arrangements, such as Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). However, so far, these organizations primarily serve as adjunct to border security and quelling domestic separatism, especially in China’s western Xinjiang, which borders Muslim Central Asia. It is unlikely for SCO to graduate into a full pledge alliance system6 anytime soon, especially with China as the lead, unless Russia will relent to it, which is unlikely. China’s recent assertiveness in SCS began to test the limits of the hub-and- spoke system’s capacity to pushback. Meantime, the US fear of entrapment and the allies’ fear of abandonment create cracks in the alliance. Some states saw Washington wavering and apparent adoption of double standards in keeping its treaty obligations. The US clarified that Japanese-administered Senkaku (which China claims as Diaoyu) fall within the coverage of the US-Japan Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT), while remaining vague as to whether Philippine-administered Kalayaan Islands (which China claims as part of the Nansha) in the West Philippine Sea are included within the ambit of US-PH MDT. Furthermore, America responded strongly and promptly to protest China’s declaration of an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ)

6 Schafer, Robert. (2016). “Partnership Instead of Alliance: The Shanghai Cooperation Organization as a Mechanism for China’s Growing Influence in Central Asia.” Small Wars Journal. Retrieved on April 10, 2018 from http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/ partnership-instead-of-alliance-the-shanghai-cooperation-organization-as-a-mechanism- for-ch; Gallo, Ernesto. (2017). “SCO not NATO’s foe.” East Asia Forum. Retrieved on April 10, 2018 from http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2017/09/24/sco-not-natos-foe.

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in ECS that cover the Senkaku by sending two B-52 bombers two days after China’s ADIZ announcement. In contrast, the US has not conducted any freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs) in the SCS when China was busy building artificial islands in the disputed sea in 2014. There was one FONOPs in 2013 and frequency picked up in 2015, but they were too late to reverse changes on the ground. In the first instance, resolute US action was able to deter China’s ADIZ enforcement. In contrast, inaction or delayed action in the second instance emboldened Chinese adventurism and allowed it to complete its construction.7 One test of the strength of the alliance lies in its ability to defend the weakest member and, in this test, the alliance seem to have failed. This incident had far reaching implications on the perceived value of the hub-and-spoke system, particularly among militarily disadvantaged allies and partners. Challenge to the system also emanate from Washington itself, with President Trump threatening to upend alliances unless partners increase their defense spending, saying that some members have become freeloaders. Former President Obama’s Rebalance to Asia could have beefed up the hub-and-spoke, but Trump’s withdrawal from its economic pillar, the TPP,8 left the pivot with no effective counterweight to China’s regional economic initiatives. Without an economic complement, the system will be insufficient to ward off or provide an alternative pole from China. Considering their burgeoning economic ties with China, Southeast Asian states may downplay military cooperation with the US at a time of increased Sino-US frictions lest they be seen by Beijing as siding with Washington or taking part in an anti-China coalition.

Concert of Powers

This model posits that the maintenance of stability is shared among major powers or alliances. An example given is the Concert of Europe,

7 McCoy, Robert E. (2018). “China Senses and Acts on US Weakness in South China Sea.” The National Interest. Retrieved on April 10, 2018 from http://nationalinterest.org/blog/ the-buzz/china-senses-acts-us-weakness-south-china-sea-24702. 8 Bader, Jeffrey A., and Dollar, David. (2015). “Why the TPP is the linchpin of the Asia rebalance.” Brookings. Retrieved on April 10, 2018 from https://www.brookings.edu/blog/ order-from-chaos/2015/07/28/why-the-tpp-is-the-linchpin-of-the-asia-rebalance.

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which provided peace in Europe for half a century beginning with the 1815 Congress of Vienna. The system works when no major actor possessed disproportionate power and influence and when all major parties conduct regular consultations. Shambaugh posited that for this system to emerge in Asia, a more equal distribution of hard power has to take place. This would require a substantial decline in US military power, which is unlikely, and a rise in the military capabilities of other powers, notably China, Japan, India, and Southeast Asia, which is not unlikely. He also said that this model would work when major powers enjoy harmonious and non-adversarial relations. Given its requisites, it is difficult to see the applicability of this model for Asia. The military gap between the US and the next emerging regional power, China, remains huge. Trump promised and obtained a big budget for the US military while underfunding diplomacy with budget cuts for the State Department and USAID. The military balance between China and Japan continue to widen and far wider when compared to India and Australia. The Indo-Pacific Quad can push back on China, but this again will only fan the Chinese notion that US and its partners are out to contain or encircle it.9 Individually, Quad members are also in a quandary. Domestic public opinion and Japan’s neighbors pose challenges to Tokyo’s bid to become a normal power. India remains largely absorbed governing the world’s largest democracy. Australia’s increasing exposure to Chinese commodities and agricultural markets constrains its room for maneuver without considering potential negative implications. Moreover, relations between major powers are also far from being completely harmonious. Wartime atrocities, historical rivalry, and maritime and territorial disputes continue to challenge China-Japan, as well as Japan-Korea relations. Territorial disputes, the Tibetan issue, India’s concern about China’s burgeoning ties with rival Pakistan, and growing Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean complicate China-India ties. The SCS flashpoint remains an irritant in Beijing’s relations with its littoral Southeast Asian neighbors. Despite the existence of cooperation platforms (e.g. BRICS for India and China, ASEAN-China FTA and Belt and Road Initiative for China and Southeast Asia, China’s burgeoning trade ties with US, Japan, and

9 Shi Jiangtao, and Zhou, Laura. (2017). “Wary China on ‘Quad’ bloc watch after officials from US, Japan, India, and Australia meet on ASEAN sidelines.” South China Morning Post. Retrieved on April 10, 2018 from http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy- defence/article/2119719/wary-china-quad-bloc-watch-after-officials-us-japan.

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Australia), differences between major actors persist. Some of these are minor and can be possibly negotiated, but some are long running and fundamental and are more difficult to resolve.

Condominium of Power

This model rests on the condominium of the region’s two major powers, the US and China. Shambaugh argued that tensions over Taiwan and strategic rivalry may make this model unlikely, though not impossible to happen. He provided some preconditions for this fifth model to transpire, namely: 1) Taiwan dispute have to be resolved; 2) China need to fully accommodate itself to the US alliance system, growing defense ties with India and growing military presence in Central Asia; and 3) mutual suspicions as strategic rivals and security threats has to be resolved. For the condominium to work, both sides have to be either allies or mutually trusting, which is problematic considering the swings in US-China ties. Similarly, it would also require regional powers to accept and accommodate the US-China condominium, a scenario Shambaugh deems unlikely. He maintains that such a condominium will come at the expense of Japan’s decline as a regional and global player, which he sees as unlikely. Overall, he is pessimistic about the prospects of such a condominium. The conditions for this condominium to take off are indeed daunting, but some assumptions can be challenged. It is unnecessary, if not impossible, for the US and China to have complete convergence of interests. Both sides can agree to disagree and leave the resolution of certain issues for the future. Washington can continue to adhere to the one-China policy, while at the same time encouraging peaceful means of effecting reunification and keeping vague on actions it can undertake to resist use of force. Despite improvements in the relations, both sides may continue to harbor lingering mutual suspicions while sustaining confidence building. All these need not impede the emergence of a condominium. Similarly, Japan’s power position can remain constant or even increase, without necessarily preventing a Sino-US condominium. The condominium proceeds from the mutual realization that their shared interests are bigger than their differences and that such an arrangement is the best means to achieve their respective goals while at the same time avoiding conflict. China needs not be subsumed under the US-led alliance system and thus be America’s junior partner as a condominium presumes mutual

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recognition of parity or near parity. If conflict avoidance will serve as a key into Sino-US relations, then condominium offers a feasible way out. Burden sharing in the provision of economic and security goods for the region and the world can also be a major incentive for the two powers to cooperate. China’s increasing capacity and willingness to deliver public goods to the international community is a welcome development toward this end. Southeast Asian states aspire peace and stability. They are increasingly becoming adept in playing off one power against the other to exact maximum concessions without compromising their autonomy. A Sino-US condominium may eliminate or greatly reduce gains and risks attendant to this behavior, but it may also usher in a period of greater stability. Differences between the two powers are not existential, unless Washington sees that the maintenance of its regional or global primacy is so. Zbigniew Brzezinski, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and Fred Bergsten, of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, are among the notable US scholars who advocate the formation of such US-China G2 condominium. They maintain that the world’s two largest economies which are both members of the United Nation Security Council with one being a rising power and the other being a strong status quo power can team up to address global challenges and offer public goods.10 Coral Bell offered a variation called “shadow condominium” wherein a temporary US-China power sharing arrangement can be made to address acute crises that will impact on both powers’ interests, such as the 2008-09 financial crisis, but will retreat in the shadows once the crisis pass, hence, the name.11 However, a condominium is not bereft of its downsides, especially on America’s relations with other regional powers and states. Southeast Asian states may feel apprehensive that such a condominium will require US to give China a freer hand in SCS at the expense of US commitment to treaty ally Philippines and emerging security partner Vietnam. Taiwan may feel helpless and be more open to overtures from the Mainland and possibly a reunification in Beijing’s terms. Japan may feel betrayed and

10 Bush, Richard C. (2011). “The United States and China: A G-2.” Brookings. Retrieved on April 8, 2018 from https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-united-states-and-china-a- g-2-in-the-making. 11 Taylor, Brendan. (2012). “A US-China ‘shadow condominium.” The Strategist. Australian Strategic Policy Institute. Retrieved on April 8, 2018 from https://www.aspistrategist.org. au/a-us-china-shadow-condominium.

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either undertakes greater self-reliance for defense or be more receptive to reach some understanding with China, although possibly with Beijing having more leverage. Without reassurance, the US allies and partners may engender a sense of being left to their own devices in dealing with their increasingly powerful and assertive neighbor. But such starkly adverse portrayal may not necessarily be inevitable. China understands that external threat perceptions is a major reason driving its neighbors to engage the US and other powers and this may put brakes on tendencies to push for a maximalist position in the resolution of disputes even with a condominium already in effect. It will not be in Beijing’s best interests to offend US sensitivities attached to its longstanding treaty alliances. Washington’s acceptance of a condominium is, in itself, already a victory for China and I sense that Beijing may be willing to give concessions to attain and keep it. Since 2013, Beijing expressed enthusiasm toward such a condominium when President Xi proposed for a new type of major power relations in his meeting with former President Obama in Sunnylands, California.12 That invitation remains open and may be considered by President Trump given his domestic priorities, transactional leanings, and cutback on overseas entanglements at costs he deems as skewed against America.

Normative Community

This model rests on a set of norms of behavior – codified and institutionalized or loosely anchored on shared goals – observed and adhered to by a regional community, such as ASEAN.13 Such norms are based on consensus and imbibed through constant interaction between and among member countries. Venues such as the ASEAN Regional Forum and SCO facilitate interaction among regional states and represent nascent efforts to reach consensus on pressing security issues. However, Shambaugh maintains that these mechanisms are still in their early stages

12 Li Cheng and Xu, Lucy. (2014). “Chinese Enthusiasm and American Cynicism Over the New Type of Great Power Relations,” Brookings. Retrieved on April 9, 2018 from https:// www.brookings.edu/opinions/chinese-enthusiasm-and-american-cynicism-over-the-new- type-of-great-power-relations. 13 Amitav, Acharya. (2014) Constructing a Security Community in Southeast Asia: ASEAN and the Problem of Regional Order, 3rd ed. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

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and far from being institutionalized, although sustained momentum may lead towards their eventual institutionalization in the future. The normative community apparently works best among small and middle powers when asymmetry is not a problem and suffer challenges when engaging major powers where asymmetry is glaring. Although there is relative peace and stability in SCS since the landmark 2016 arbitral ruling adverse against China’s expansive maritime claims, a regional Code of Conduct (COC) remain elusive 15 years after the Declaration of Conduct was made. This is despite repeated expressions of interest by regional states in crafting one. China’s influence loom large in the ASEAN cohesiveness in relation to the SCS disputes, with division running along claimants and non-claimants, mainland and insular, and between states with higher exposure to Chinese aid, trade and investments, and those with more diversified economic portfolios. China’s reluctance is a major factor behind stalled COC talks, although recent positive developments are changing this. With a firmer footing in SCS and improved relations with frontline state Philippines, which is playing the role of ASEAN-China country coordinator, Beijing now supports the early conclusion of a COC. China may feel disadvantaged to be bounded by regional norms when other major powers are not, but Beijing must realize that the SCS disputes compels militarily weaker claimants to enlist external support. If China sees the entry of non-resident powers as further complicating the multiparty flashpoint, then it should see the value of earnestly working with ASEAN to better manage the disputes and a COC will be a big contribution towards that end. The recent adoption of a COC Framework is a promising development, but still a long way to go in developing “rules of the road” for SCS. Much is expected from Beijing.

Complex Interdependence

The last model holds that economic and technological – not security – issues will dominate the future of Asia and non-state actors and processes that operate at the societal level will be the key players. However, despite the advance of globalization and increased economic interdependence between and among Asian states, Shambaugh maintains that this system will still not define Asia’s future since it downplays the role of nation-states,

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which are unlikely to be rendered obsolete in the foreseeable future. It also lacks a security component, which makes it untenable. Shambaugh believes that a truly regional model should have both economic and security components. Although there is no doubt that globalization had tear down national barriers to facilitate the flow of people, goods, capital and knowledge, economics and technology alone are insufficient to foster a regional order. Security issues are unlikely to just recede in the background and nation-states will not simply surrender their power and sovereignty to the invisible hand of the transnational market and technology. In contrast, states continue to rein in the market, which may create distortions, but may also stem market failures or negative externalities. At the same time, states, with or without the private sector, also harness technology to serve its ends. China’s economy, for one, continues to be dominated by the state through industrial planning and state-owned enterprises mixed with increasing openings for market forces to come in. The country’s commanding heights or strategic sectors remain under the hands of the state, a phenomenon also seen among other East Asian states. The Chinese government is also investing in information, cyber, and space technologies for both economic and security purposes. Thus, nation-states can, and still do, shape economic and technological forces. Regional and global production chains may be integrating the world, but they are not immune and are, in fact, disrupted by state actions, such as during periods of inter-state tensions or conflict. Economic interdependence will neither erode the institution of the state anytime soon nor address security problems.

Rivalry and Condominium: Two Faces of the Relations

Competition and cooperation constitute enduring themes in US-China relations and they are likely to remain as the defining feature of the world’s most important bilateral relations. Major power rivalry and condominium represent these two themes. A binary balance-of-power complemented by a condominium will allow both powers to pursue their respective and shared interests, while at the same time avoiding a potentially catastrophic conflict. Rivalry, pushback, negotiation, accommodation, and cooperation will be the continuum from which US-China relations oscillate and will continue to do so. The other models contain elements that can account for some aspects of the relations, but they remain insufficient.

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China’s unrelenting drive for great power status buoyed by strong economic credentials and increasing military might and led by a unitary political party uninterrupted since 1949 may foster the creation of a hegemonic order. A strong China may invite deference from other countries, especially China’s immediate smaller neighbors. But this overly assumes passiveness of other actors, notably US. America will not sit idly watching the development of China’s comprehensive national strength without preparing countermeasures to forestall the establishment of a Sino-centric hegemony which may push it out of the region and institute an order adversely affecting US regional interests. Washington, for one, warns regional allies against unsustainable debt and security risks posed by Chinese technologies, such as Huawei’s digital networks. Southeast Asia too is unlikely to concede ending economic and security engagement with other powers in SCS lest it be seen as diminution of their sovereignty. There is no doubt that a weakened American position, more so a possible retrenchment, will embolden China to further consolidate its hold in the region but this scenario is unlikely. A Sino-centric order is not as easy as it sounds, not to mention the regional anxieties it will generate. Despite cracks in the hub-and-spoke system, it remains relevant and integral in the strategy of allies and partners to push back against China’s expansive claims and aggressive actions, especially in SCS where China enjoys disproportionate asymmetry over its Southeast Asian disputants. That said, demonstration of greater U.S. commitment is critical in shoring up the alliance’s deterrence value. Washington’s pronouncements in support of a free and open Indo- Pacific is welcomed by regional states, but details of the strategy remain to be articulated and relations with Indo-Pacific partners are not without challenges. This includes growing US protectionism and unilateralism, withdrawal from TPP, threats to renegotiate US-Japan FTA, and adverse fallout of Trump-Turnbull phone call in US-Australia ties, among others. Quad can constitute a concert of powers but that concert excludes China and will be seen by China as targeting her, thus, exacerbating regional tensions. Meanwhile, Beijing may see a normative community as tying its hands, while other powers remain unrestricted and this could possibly explain its trepidation towards agreeing to a binding COC. Finally, nation-states remain key actors in the regional and global stage and these actors, including US and China, are increasingly making use of economic and technological tools to compete and cooperate with one

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another. In addition, security issues, including between the two powers, are also unlikely to fade away.

Conclusion

A bipolar balance-of-power model with a militarily strong, though economically declining (especially post-2008 financial crisis) US, and an economically and increasingly militarily strong China eventually offsetting each other is not out of sight. China emerged as Asia’s leading trade partner and began making inroads in security cooperation with regional states as well. China conducted joint air force (2015) and naval/maritime exercises (2016) with Thailand and similarly engaged Malaysia (2014-16) and Indonesia (2011-14), not to mention selling littoral combat mission ships to Malaysia in 2016 and co-producing military vehicles, equipment (in 2008), and missiles with Indonesia in 2011. Combined with its increasing use of economic carrots to advance political or diplomatic ends, Beijing’s regional power continues to gain ground. America’s capacity to compete with China, especially on the economic front, is important in remaining relevant in the fast-changing bustling region. China’s deep pockets, higher appetite for risk, flexible terms and surplus capacity enable it to promote a connectivity project that appeals to regional demands for hard and soft infrastructure. These efforts allow China to steadfastly close its power gap with the US in what it sees as a “period of strategic opportunity.” This raises the stakes for Sino-US major power showdown but also induces the necessity of developing mechanisms to manage such competition cognizant of the enormous consequences if unbridled rivalry will be allowed to run loose. Conflict avoidance and burden sharing underscore the significance of pushing for a condominium. Risks and uncertainties consequent to major power rivalry or power transition can be mitigated by such a condominium.

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Patricia Villa

Scrutinizing the Role of Humiliation Narratives: An Alternative Take on China’s State Behavior in the South China Sea*

Introduction

he relative rise of China in the Asia Pacific region has been grounded Tsince its reform and opening up took place in the 1970’s, followed by the recognition of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the sole government representing all of China by the United Nations (UN) and the rest of the world. While increasingly attracting neighbors with its new image, recent activities not only in the South China Sea but also in other disputed areas have increasingly started to upset what was once a warm and friendly atmosphere in the region. Not only is the perceived aggression in disputed areas worry fellow claimant states, China is also in dispute with Korea on straightening up facts regarding Northeast Asia’s regional history, not to mention its long standing agony against Japanese aggression committed during the Second World War. Seemingly chaotic, one problem that could be used as a point of inquiry is looking into the motives that drive China’s state behavior. It would be interesting to note that despite the negative views held against China by various claimant states, it does enjoy a good deal of support domestically. In this case, what is apparently perceived as threatening towards others is conceivably normal for the public.1 The ascension of the CCP into power

* Original version of paper delivered at the international conference marking the 30th anniversary of the Philippine Association for Chinese Studies held at Joy-Nostalg Hotel and Suites in Ortigas Center, Pasig City on December 2, 2017. 1 Through a personal correspondence in a roundtable discussion with several Chinese counterparts from Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China in December 2015, the actions of the party and their government are justified given that if it does not adopt a hardline stance in claiming territories, its legitimacy will be compromised.

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was officially realized in 1949 when it successfully defeated, through a Protracted People’s War, the Kuomintang-led (KMT) Nationalist Government, internationally recognized as the Republic of China (ROC) after its coalition government with the latter collapsed upon driving away together Japanese imperialist forces out of China. The victory led to the establishment of a new government dubbed as the People’s Republic of China, leading the defeated ROC to retreat to Taiwan and later on losing its sovereign status and its seat in the UN in 1975. Considerably, the Mao-led communist party had only one proclamation to which the party holds on to this day, that the CCP alone can save all of China, signifying that the people’s victory was enabled by the party (Gries, 2004a; 2004b). Such a narrative, as Hughes (2006) would later point out, is vital for the survival of the party at a time when China is rebuilding its nation after being ravaged by British and Japanese imperialist forces – a period that the Chinese call the “century of humiliation” between 1842 and 1949. While the newly established party-state is domestically busy in solidifying the public, it is internationally caught, as with many other countries that were involved because of their alignment, in the middle of the strife between the United States and the Soviet Union. The difficulty furthered in the 1960s upon the imposition of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution which was a campaign led by the party to accelerate the country’s immersion into the socialist way of life. Seeing its excesses, the campaign was later on halted. Upon Mao Zedong’s demise and later on Deng Xiaoping’s rise as the new Supreme leader, the party-state saw a shift in its paradigm – from a strictly Marxist-Leninist-Maoist worldview, it began adopting a more pragmatic approach in dealing with its domestic and international affairs (Chai, 2003). Indicative of such a shift to pragmatism was signaled by the Reform and Opening Up policy of the party, which opened China’s doors to the world under the banner of the “Invigoration of China.” Continuing on with generations of leaders, the narrative of national salvation remained – Jiang Zemin’s “Three Represents,” Hu Jintao’s “The Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation,” and the more recent, Xi Jinping’s “Chinese Dream.” All programs under such frameworks, especially the Hu Jintao’s rhetoric on the “Harmonious Society,” point out to how China intends to achieve national salvation and redeem its collective self-esteem that was lost during the Century of Humiliation. Included in the salvation is the reclaiming of disputed territories, which in

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their defense are territories that were lost to imperialist forces. This study will look into one of the legitimizing forces that drive Chinese state behavior and foreign policy, one of which is through the invocation of the humiliation narratives stemming from the collective memory of the century of humiliation between 1842 and 1949.

Research Questions

Given the issues and gaps within the existing literature which will later on be further elaborated, this study intends to inquire how the narratives of humiliation serve as a driving, enabling, and legitimizing force of Chinese foreign policy. Specifically, the study aims to answer the following questions: 1. Which specific Chinese foreign policies did the narratives figure into? 2. What events highlight the innate character of the narratives among the Chinese people? 3. How does the Chinese government mobilize public support through the narratives? 4. What role do the narratives fulfill in Chinese foreign policy? As evidenced in the literature review, one of the most noteworthy frameworks utilized by Moore (2014) was Robert Putnam’s notion of two level games. Through this, he probed into the domestic situation (first level) and the international situation (second level) to come up with a comprehensive answer as to why both China and Japan would not back down and compromise their claim to the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. He concluded that domestically, the Chinese public has the need to save “face” – a phenomenon that is related to the narratives of humiliation. Such a domestic need is pursued by the state on an international level, especially now that Japan “owes” China an apology because of the war crimes. In terms of the innateness of the narratives among the Chinese people, Z. Wang (2014) points to the Chosenness- Myths-Traumas (CMT) complex, wherein the collective traumas of the people are used to advance a particular cause which in this case is the achievement of past glories which they believe was held by China prior to the First Opium War in 1842. Overall, the purpose of this inquiry is to explore and understand the narratives of humiliation as a driving force behind Chinese foreign policy. Veering away from purely structural and agential explanations, this study

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hopes to address the narratives as not merely orchestrated by the party-state but as well as innate among the Chinese people through shared histories and collective memories. This study, in turn, aims to be able to provide a holistic and context specific explanation of Chinese state behavior.

Rationale of the Study

Much of the literature on the narratives of humiliation has already established that such have been a recurring theme in Chinese foreign policy. In line with this, I intend to veer away from contributing to the furthering of the development of the narratives and instead use it as a takeoff point to understand how the Chinese government utilizes its legitimation mechanisms to solidify and stabilize its forces internally, enabling its foreign policy agendas to be smoothly implemented with minimal domestic impediments and constraints. Moore utilized a noteworthy inquiry and framework (2014). His study intended to understand how it is possible for both China and Japan to opt not to compromise their respective stances on the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands dispute using Robert Putnam’s notion of two-level games. Mainly, it is this framework that inspired this paper to explore further the Chinese government’s legitimation tactics. Understanding China’s legitimation tactics – while being mindful of observation, ideological, and methodological bias – enables one to further understand Chinese politics. Scholars such as Said (1978) have long criticized the dominant Western discourse of understanding Asia through Western standards. It has been deemed as simplistic and deterministic, and almost devoid of the uniqueness of the historical developments of a particular society. This research hopes to fill the gap in today’s understanding of modern Chinese politics. Mere labels such as authoritarian, dictatorial, and illiberal box out the necessity of understanding cultural and historical contexts. Such also resulted in miscalculations and failure to posit context- specific assumptions with regard to state behavior.

Scope and Limitations

This study will only be limited to analyzing the officially translated and published works of selected Chinese leaders and objects on display in three

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significant museums and one site in Beijing from the 1970s to the present. In no attempt to generalize, the results and conclusions that may be drawn to the study may be specific to China’s case, although it goes without saying that the research design may be applied by other researchers, with modifications, who would wish to examine the same phenomenon on a different context.

Conceptualization

This section will discuss the theories, which will be utilized in analyzing how the narratives of humiliation serve to legitimize Chinese foreign policy. The first part elaborates on understanding a state’s needs based on the claims of Alexander Wendt (1999). Such will be used to strengthen the argument that the humiliation narratives and the accompanying need for the redemption of “collective self-esteem” (p. 236) are innate among the Chinese population. What follows is the CMT complex posited by Johan Galtung (2001).2 It argues that the state is capable of framing and orchestrating, and highlighting a particular discourse – which in this case is the humiliation narrative – to fit a certain agenda. A closer scrutiny of certain foreign policy agendas will be conducted under this lens. The utilization of two theories addresses the aim of the paper to elicit a holistic understanding of Chinese state behavior that is neither confined nor boxed into the dichotomous debate of structure and agency.

Understanding a state’s needs

Wendt (1999) presupposed the need to elicit culture not just an explanation of last resort but rather as a primary consideration in analyzing state behavior. In this regard, he argued that ideas, as constitutions, are vital in understanding a state’s interests (135). For the purpose of this study, Wendt’s claim in understanding a state’s interests – specifically of the Chinese government’s interests – lies in understanding its needs which is divided into two: 1) identity needs; and 2) material needs.

2 I would like to give due credit to Zheng Wang as the utilization of the CMT complex in this study is inspired and slightly paralleled (with minor alterations) to that of his in his work, “Chinese Dream: Context and Concept.” Journal of Chinese Political Science (2014), vol. 19, pp. 1-13.

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Identity needs refer to “the internal and external structures that constitute… actors as social kinds” (130). Whereas Wendt (1999) went along to argue that there is no assurance that such needs will ultimately lead to actions aimed at addressing such needs, one should also be cautious as to not entirely claim that such needs are not satisfied, the agents will not survive. It almost goes without saying that all of the actions of an actor – for this instance, the state – is directed towards securing the satisfaction of that need. On the other hand, Wendt (1999) also presented that actors have material needs, which are more likely paralleled after the concept of human nature.3 Material needs constitute physical security, ontological security, sociation, self-esteemand transcendence.4 Of primary consideration in this study is fourth material need – self-esteem. At an individual level, self-esteem as a material need entreats humans’ need to feel good about themselves. In the context of East Asian states, self- esteem is compensated through honor, glory, achievement, recognition, power, and even group membership or the ability to identify one’s self as part of a collective (Wendt, 1999; Moore, 2014, p. 225). These are achieved through certain practices, the most common examples of which is paying respects to an elderly or a person of authority by bowing your head (Japan, Korea, China). When such honors are applied in a group dynamics, in this instance, the nation, the concept of “collective self- esteem” may be invoked, more so on the national level. Collective self-esteem translates to national interest (Wendt 1999, p. 236). In the case of China, a negative collective self-image has been persistent in the nation’s discourse specifically pertaining to the state of their domain and its people from 1842 to 1949. Later on, this will be intersected with Galtung’s (2001) CMT complex framework as to who reinforces such negative collective self-images. As far as the Chinese are concerned, their grandeur as well a unique culture have been lambasted by the British and furthermore (and more severely) by the Japanese. If we are to look at the actions of the State in relation to “aggression” and the reaction of its people through the lens of collective self-esteem, the

3 A disclaimer on the concept of human nature was also guaranteed by Wendt (1999) himself as he initially stated that such needs, while material, still do not entirely guarantee that actors will act upon to satisfy such needs. After all, “people do commit suicide.” This implies, however, that if the satisfaction of such needs was not acted upon, humans would not have survived evolution (p. 131). 4 For a detailed definition of each material need, see Wendt (1999), pp. 131-132.

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implications seem more plausible as opposed to the prevailing discourse of increasing military spending and improvement of military capabilities.5 The satisfaction of collective self-esteem, along with the other three national interests – physical survival, autonomy, and economic well-being – is key to securing state-society complexes6 (p. 237). Similar to the satisfaction of needs at an individual level, Wendt (1999) claims that the actions and efforts expended by the state and the society are all aimed at meeting such needs. When met, a feeling of satisfaction is induced (positive self-image, in the case of collective self-esteem). If unmet, feelings and perceptions of anxiety, fear, frustration may prevail which will later on be compensated through increased efforts, changes in interests, or even engagement in aggression.

CMT complex as ‘master narratives’

Based on Wendt’s (1999) premise, it is safe to claim within the parameters of this study that both the society and the state have needs that they ultimately aim to satisfy. Domestically, the Chinese society is not so much as isolated as the world thinks they are. A legitimate claim was made by Gries (2004), arguing that the Chinese people are not mere agents with no self-consciousness as to how they would act on a certain issue. While the claim is noteworthy, one must still consider how the state factors in to the dominance of a particular discourse. As Carr (1939) once noted, “It is victors who write history,” the political implications of which point to how history is shaped by dominant powers. In this instance, we point to the Chinese state. Galtung (2001) argues that certain events in history shape and define a group’s identity and behavior, mostly in conflict situations. In this sense, the Chosennes--Myths-Trauma (CMT) complex may be observed. Chosenness refers to the impression that people are chosen by some sort of transcendental forces. Trauma, on the other hand, refers to the invocation of a past distress that “casts shadows onto the future” (Wang, 2014, p. 3). It is constituted by experiences that define a group’s deepest

5 A precedent may be considered here as Wendt (1999) used the example of how the defeat of Germany in World War I translated into national humiliation and degradation, which later on resulted into the redemption of collective self-esteem manifested through the popularity and rise of Adolf Hitler, and later on, fascism (pp. 236-237). 6 For a thorough discussion on national interests, see Wendt (1999), pp. 233-238).

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threats and fears through feelings of hopelessness and victimization. The failure to reverse, compensate, and get back from the injury damages a group’s collective self-esteem, eventually leads to feelings of degradation and humiliation. It may be seen that this coincides with Wendt’s (1999) claim on the need to satisfy collective self-esteem as a national interest. Lastly, myths refer to certain glories allegedly experienced by a particular group, and is often viewed as something that should be re-enacted or re- achieved. In this case, the humiliation narratives point to the grandeur of the Chinese society as the Middle Kingdom prior to it being lambasted by the British during the First Opium War, and eventually by its “little brother” Japan during the Second World War. As mentioned, the CMT complex as a framework will be used to understand how the state invokes the humiliation narratives to instill pride and eventually result to the legitimization of its foreign policy agendas. Specifically, this study aims to trace the existence of the narratives in Deng Xiaoping, Hu Jintao, Jiang Zemin, and Xi Jinping’s overarching foreign policy frameworks. I deem that the case of China will be suitable for such an inquiry as the state is defined and guided by a single party. This reduces, if not eliminates, the dilemma of having to give primary considerations to personal idiosyncrasies, as the foreign policy agendas are consistent despite the individual who heads the state.

The Research Variables

The study will be revolving among three variables: the state as the independent variable, foreign policy as the dependent variable, and the humiliation narratives as the control variable. Figure 1 shows the relationship between and among the three variables, where the state invokes the humiliation narratives. The injection of the narratives is considered as part of the legitimization process prior to the fulfillment of the foreign policy agenda. The dotted line signals the embeddedness of the humiliation narratives into Chinese foreign policy. In this study, the state is defined as a unitary actor – integrated within which are the society, culture, history, and, in China’s context, the Communist Party. I took the liberty of adopting Wendt’s (1999) definition of a state as “people too” since the inquiry requires its “anthropomorphization” and/or humanize. Put in his terms, it may be termed as the “state-society complex.”

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Process of legitimization

State Foreign injected Policy

invokes embedded to Humiliation Narratives

Fig. 1. Illustration of a State’s Invocation of the Narratives to Legitimize Chinese Foreign Policy. Hus confex nonequit. Gratur in dioraecre atui

On the other hand, the humiliation narratives point to what the Chinese dubbed as the “century of humiliation” which transpired from 1842 until 1949. The “humiliating” events began during the First Opium War, fought against the British, all the way to the notorious Rape of Nanjing in 1937, inflicted by Japanese soldiers against the former capital of China. The year 1949 signaled the end of the humiliation upon the victory of the Chinese revolution with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as its vanguard party. Since then, the party has aimed at securing not only the Chinese people’s welfare (according to its claims) but also its foothold as the single party ruling all of China. The humiliation narratives, if placed within Wendt’s and Galtung’s assumptions on collective self-esteem and group identity, taps into the unsatisfied needs of those who lived and experienced the humiliation. In the succeeding section, I proposed that these unsatisfied needs are tapped by the state through the humiliation narratives. The narratives are placed as control variables as these have been changed depending on the internal and external landscape China is situated in.7 Lastly, China’s

7 Recent trends showed signs of the narratives being contingent upon victor narratives. Victor narratives, according to Gries (2004), point to how the CCP salvaged all of China from the century of humiliation. The intention is to highlight that the CCP and the CCP alone can save China.

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foreign policies are always anchored in a particular framework set by the party, which this study is interested in. Chinese leadership over the last few decades (from 1970s to the present) have indicated that the main goal is national rejuvenation – the reclaiming of China’s former status in the region and in the world, at least as evidenced by pronouncements. Wang dubbed this as an “old wine in a new bottle,” specifying that no matter how the state phrases the framework, the agenda remains the same.

Initial Findings

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union at the turn of the 20th century, the CCP was at a dilemma in terms of keeping its legitimacy8 as the sole existing party to rule all of China – lacking the legal-rational source of legitimacy enjoyed by liberal democratic states (Gries 2004a). To be more specific, the narrative of humiliation is currently being utilized by the party as a legitimizing tool for CCP leaders to instill national unification as well as maintain the idea that only the CCP can save China (Wang, 2013; 2014). A discussion on this was also put forward in an earlier work by Atanassova- Cornelis (2012). The metaphor, “an old wine in a new bottle,” coined by Wang (2013; 2014), represents the narrative of humiliation applied by generations of leaders that have spearheaded the rule of the CCP and China. Whether utilized positively as a victor narrative, such as what Mao Zedong did, or negatively as a victimization narrative, such as what leaders Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, and Xi Jinping did, the core concept that is China’s century of humiliation remains embedded in the narratives, easily justifying the actions included in China’s rise. In this light, it is important that one understands China’s worldview prior to and after said humiliation. Wang (2014) showed that the century of humiliation, as a historical memory, is deep-seated in the Chinese people’s history and is in fact part and parcel of the construction of China’s

8 One of the three sources of political legitimacy coined by Max Weber, legal-rational authority is possessed by a government whose power stems from a clearly defined set of formal and constitutional rules, contrary to the first two sources – traditional authority and charismatic authority. See Heywood, A. (2013). Politics, 4th ed. Palgrave MacMillan: New York, p. 82.

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national identity. A more specific case is shown in Atannassova-Cornelis’ (2012) article, wherein she showed how China’s relations with Japan and the US are crucial in this identity construction. As Xi Jinping’s Chinese Dream has been turning heads, catching much attention and developing discourse in the international community, Zhao (2013) offered a nuanced understanding of how this strident turn in Chinese nationalism would enable as well as challenge the full realization of said dream. Borrowing Wang’s (2013; 2014) metaphor, the objective of this section is to show that there may be shifts in the paradigms utilized by the CCP – from a strict adherence to the Marxist-Leninist-Mao Zedong Thought (MLMZT) to a pragmatic and multilateral-oriented approach in foreign policy – but the narratives of humiliation are embedded underneath each generation of leaders’ slogans (Chai, 2003). Inquiring how do Chinese nationalism and the narratives of humiliation shape Chinese foreign policy, this review of related literature aims to establish that the narratives of humiliation, be it in the victor narrative or victimization narrative, were always present as pretexts for Chinese foreign policy. In the end, the literature review aims to establish research gaps for a possible research question. As a disclaimer, this literature review acknowledges the looming debate on whether incumbent Chinese President Xi Jinping will again shift from the victimization narrative to the victor narrative, as the deadline for achieving the first of the two centenary goals is fast approaching.9 The following sections highlight the major concepts that the study will be dealing with in relation to other concepts. It begins with relating Chinese nation-building and foreign policy, specifically how the party maintains that foreign policy represents Chinese identity; followed by addressing the major debates theorizing whether Chinese nationalism is culturally universal or top-down. Succeeding subsections include how scholars view the foreign policy implications of Chinese nationalism and a summary of the major theories and methodologies used by authors. The state of the literature is also included followed lastly with a conclusion identifying and enumerating the gaps in the literature.

9 The two centenary goals put forward by incumbent Chinese President Xi Jinping is usually presented along with the Chinese Dream as twin aspirations. Specifically, the first two centenary goal is targeted to be achieved by the year 2021, when China is supposed to already be a moderately well-off society in lined with the 100th founding anniversary of the CCP; the second is set to be achieved by the year 2049, the 100th founding anniversary of the PRC, when China is supposed to be a fully developed country.

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Chinese Nation-Building and Foreign Policy

Attanassova-Cornelis (2012) examined Chinese identity as a victim, a developing country, a great power. Evident in the formation of the arguments per angle of Chinese identity was the “othering” of Japan and the US, situating both as critical to the century of humiliation and China’s arming up, respectively. Similar to what is being put forward by Wang (2014), Chinese identity as a victim is predicated under the narratives of humiliation which was mainly put forward in the patriotic education campaign led by Jiang Zemin in the 1990s. Japan, in this case, is seen as a major player in the century of humiliation (1842-1945), when China was placed under colonial rule by the British and then later on by the Japanese in the first and second Sino-Japanese War (1894 and 1931, respectively), and the notorious Rape of Nanjing in 1937. Presently, such historical atrocities are being invoked because of the escalation of tensions in the Diaoyu/Senkaku disputes. Coinciding with Gries (2004a), the century of humiliation became the nation’s narrative, seen in both lenses as victor and victim. On the other hand, the US – under China’s perspective – strains any chances for Mainland China and Taiwan to be reunified. To be more specific, the issue with the Strait is considered by the PRC as a domestic policy (Atanssova-Cornelis 2012, p. 97). With the US simultaneously supplying armaments to Taiwan while adhering to the one China policy, the possibilities of reunification remain dim, as part of the victim mentality constitutes the cross-strait issue. One of the building blocks of patriotism, economic growth, and modernization kept dissatisfaction with the regime at bay along with maintaining and ensuring political stability and national unification. Development, according to CCP, is “the basis for solving all problems in China and for China to conduct effective diplomacy” (Wen, 2007, as cited in Atanassova-Cornelis, 2012, p. 98). The three building blocks paved the way for the state to strengthen the people’s loyalty. Applying these in foreign policy,

The projection of China’s identity as a developing country influences leaders’ primary focus on economic objectives. The importance PRC elites attached to a peaceful external environment, improved living standards, and a strengthened ‘comprehensive national power’ (CNP) reflects this goal and is directly linked to China’s so-called ‘revitalization.’ (p. 98)

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As a developing country, there is pressure on the PRC to maintain a delicate balance with Japan in terms of establishing an acceptable domestic equilibrium. The inculcation of the century of humiliation among the public has, while beneficial to the government, also posed a challenge as they have to quell anti-Japanese sentiments. As with the US, prevention of escalating tensions and formation of conflict because of its “meddling” with the cross-strait issue is key in line with maintaining a peaceful external environment. Similarly, on a social constructivist note, Liao (2013) highlights China’s “strong sense of entitlement to international acclamation” (p. 149). Due in part of the patriotic education campaign10 (Wang 2008) spearheaded under the leadership of Jiang Zemin, the Chinese people collectively adhere to the idea that China – the Middle Kingdom (zhongguo) – prior to the First Opium War (1842) fought against the British colonizers, held a high status and grandeur relative to the rest of the world (pp. 788-789). For Moore (2014) and earlier on, put forward by Gries (2004b). Lastly, Chinese identity as a great power. China’s recent military build- up has been met by the neighboring countries including the US with much caution. Included in this track is the growing assertiveness over claiming lost territories, examples of which are the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands (with Japan), and to an extent, Taiwan as part of Mainland China. Effective defense, therefore, is a precondition for China’s successful revitalization. For CCP leaders, the “great power” identity is a restoration of its perceived rightfully deserved international respect and status – something that equates to what they believe they enjoyed prior to the century of humiliation. Particular to dealing with Japan and the US is the creation of the “discourse of danger” to justify military build-up to counter external threat. It can be observed that political elites have placed much effort in strengthening the sense of national unity centered on the state and the CCP. This coincides with what Wang (2014) claimed in his article: that the goal of the CCP is to maintain the loyalty of the people to them by instilling the notion that only the CCP can save and/or revitalize China which will eventually lead to achieving its former status as a great power.

10 Launched after the Tiananmen incident, the patriotic education campaign sought to educate China’s humiliating experience in the hands of its colonizers, the British, and later on, the Japanese (see Zheng Wang, 2008).

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On the Concept of ‘Face,’ ‘Collective Self-Esteem,’ and ‘Imagined Community’

Interestingly, such efforts placed at strengthening national unity, for Gries (2004b) and Moore (2014) have deeply-rooted concepts that are not supposed to be taken lightly. Specifically, Moore (2014) gives due emphasis on the Confucian value of honor, or in Gries’ (2004b) words, “face” or “collective self-esteem,” and on a more widely known term coined by Benedict Anderson (1991), an “imagined community.” In a study utilizing social constructivism, Moore (2014) explains how the Chinese’s shared meanings of past glories fuel nationalism and their strong feelings against any aggressors, which in this case is Japan because of the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands dispute in the East China Sea. Specifically:

Face can be considered a need, whether we speak of individuals or states – accepting here provisionally, for convenience sake, realist understandings of the unitary or anthropomorphized state – and can also be defined as something akin to dignity or honor (p. 223).

Applying such concept using Robert Putnam’s notion of two-level games in foreign policy, Moore (2014) explains that both China and Japan have “face needs” that need to be satisfied. Probing closer, the Chinese people’s face needs stem from the notion that China did enjoy certain past glories, as mentioned earlier, prior to the First Opium War (p. 230). A comparable argument, albeit analyzed through the CMT complex, was also made by Wang in 2014. Utilizing the CMT complex as a framework in explaining the embeddedness of historical memory among Chinese people’s consciousness, Zhen Wang (2014), in his article “Chinese Dream: Concept and Context” from the Journal of Chinese Political Science. argues that western scholars have aversions in understanding China’s “fixation” over their historical experience at the hands of their colonizers. For scholars Orville Schell and John Delury, “to move forward, the country must move on from its emphasis on a century of national humiliation and a rising China needs a new national story” (2013). While it is a valid concern that a rising power like China should now construct a new narrative as it takes the stage on an international level, one cannot simply discredit the deep seatedness of the narrative of national humiliation in the Chinese people. Put in terms of the CMT complex, the Chinese government, in order to instill a top-down nationalist discourse

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(Zhao, 2013), has had to institutionalize the said narrative as a way to indoctrinate certain chosen glories and chosen traumas. For the Chinese, these would involve how they perceive China prior to the First Opium War (1839-1842), and how China was in between 1839 until 1945 (when the Japanese surrendered), respectively. As Wang (2014) showed in his article, as well as in an earlier but related piece published in The Diplomat in Deng Xiaoping’s Invigoration of China, Jiang Zemin’s Great Rejuvenation, and Hu Jintao’s Harmonious Society, hence, the metaphor, “an old wine in a new bottle.” Cross-examining this with Gries’ (2004) book chapter on “Nationalism and Chinese Foreign Policy” in China Rising: Power and Motivation in Chinese Foreign Policy, the narrative of humiliation had always been present, be it in Mao’s victor narratives11 or Deng, Jiang, Hu, and Xi’s victimization narratives. Despite being in opposite poles, such narratives are always based on China’s colonial history and how China will one day regain its former status as a great power. Similarly, Gries utilized the concept of face (2004b) in an earlier work on Chinese nationalism. He looked into the negative reactions that the US bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999 drew among the people. While the protests were highly criticized as state-orchestrated, Gries (2004b) notably argued that such a top-down view of Chinese nationalism is myopic. It must be understood that the Chinese people themselves have deep attachments to their national identity. In this regard, he advances the need to look into the people’s collective self-esteem, which was emphasized as not only unique to China or on East Asian nations but is rather culturally universal. For Gries (2004b), face “captures the interplay of self and society in the process of constructing personhood” (p. 23), hence, the negative reaction of the Chinese people.

Chinese Nationalism: Culturally Universal or Top-Down?

Such views are of course not without criticism. Structuralists such as Atanassova-Cornelis (2012) and He (2007) argued that the victimization

11 Victor narratives pertain to how China won over its colonizers – the British and the Japanese. On the other hand, “Victimization narratives” point to how said colonizers, during the Century of Humiliation (1839-1945), have lambasted China’s great civilization (Gries, 2004).

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narrative is a CCP imposed top-down nationalism managed through the patriotic education campaign under Jiang Zemin’s leadership in the 1990s. He (2007) noted that the problem with the war historiography in China lays under the fact that it “remains under the custody of politicians and ideologues” (p. 24). Such claims do reinforce the idea that Chinese nationalism is indeed party-state orchestrated. Liao (2013) and Gries (2004a; 2004b), however, noted that in analyzing societies, the people must not be seen as static – as if they are mere pawns of state policies incapable of deciding on their own and bereft of attachments to history and do not have a sense of community. In sum, the key motivations of Chinese foreign policy include legitimacy, redemption of collective self-esteem, and bringing back past glories. Be these top-down or culturally universal, it still shows that the humiliation narrative, whether the Chinese as victors or victims, was always evident. All throughout the different generations of CCP leadership – Deng’s Invigoration of China, Jiang’s Great Rejuvenation, Hu’s Harmonious Society and Xi’s Chinese Dream – the narratives remain deep-seated although some would argue that they were orchestrated by the party.

Foreign Policy Implications of Chinese Nationalism

Zhao (2013) and Weiss (2015 were very particular with the changing attitude of the state toward the rise of popular nationalism in China. For one, the state seems to encourage protest culture as part of its pragmatism toward handling and adhering to the public’s sentiments. Recognizing that it has monopoly over crafting foreign policy, Chinese leaders also acknowledge the fact that growing public sentiments – specifically anti-US sentiments – have to be addressed (Sorensen, 2016). Deng Xiaoping’s tao guang yang hui (hiding its capabilities, focusing on national strength building and biding its time) policy served as a guide for leaders in handling such sentiments. Learning from the mistakes of the Soviet Union by “confronting the US so as to exhaust itself” (Zhao, 2013, pp. 541-542). Doing so meant that China learned to “live with the hegemon” (p. 541), recognizing that US dominance held the key to China’s modernization. Since the early 2000s, Chinese leaders have placed much stress on peaceful coexistence, peaceful rise, and peaceful development.

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In line with this, Zhao (2013) puts forward that the CCP has adopted a two-pronged strategy in dealing with nationalism. While such maintains the legitimacy of the CCP, the public also used it to judge and question the performance of the state. The danger of the latter will materialize should the CCP fail to deliver its nationalist promise – which in this case is to achieve revitalization. Relating this to Atanassova-Cornelis’ (2012) and Wang’s (2014) respective articles, said revitalization would mean achieving China’s former status as a great power, a status it enjoyed prior to the First Opium War in 1842. The two-pronged strategy, hence, allows the state to mobilize popular support from the public. On one hand, they encourage expression of popular sentiments; on the other, they ban anti-foreign demonstrations. The CPP leaders viewed nationalism, in this sense, as a force that must be channeled in its expression. As for implications to Chinese foreign policy, Zhao notes that:

The rise of nationalism, therefore, did not make Chinese foreign policy particularly inflexible or irrational. A strident turn, however, has taken place parallel with China’s growing economic, diplomatic, and military muscle in the 21st century as the Chinese leadership has come to be more responsive to, and share more of, the views of popular nationalism in adopting tougher approaches to forcefully pursuing core interests (p. 553).

However, prior to this kind of understanding, Chinese nationalism as fueled by the narratives of humiliation were seen as a major part of the China threat. Zhu (2001) noted that a solidified domestic public support for the government caused a certain degree of alarm for Western observers, particularly to the adherents of the Realist school. Such a support, according to critics, would make it easier for the Chinese government to push through with its aggression in claiming the disputed areas, posing a “strong challenge to the post-Cold War international and political economic order currently dominated… in general by the US” (p. 2; Brittingham, 2007). Townsend (1992) is keen on calling such a perception as caused by the phenomenon of culturalism to nationalism, wherein the highly Confucian and hierarchical way of the Chinese viewing other states has now changed into nationalism out of necessity, as the state aims to now preserve national unity (p. 99).

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Summing Up Theories and Methodologies

As far as the literature is concerned, two approaches are most commonly used by authors studying Chinese nationalism and Chinese foreign policy. Some go for an institutionalism and structuralism, stating that Chinese nationalism, through the government’s constant emphasis on the century of humiliation, is orchestrated by the party; whereas some defend the agential notion that the Chinese people are not mere pawns of the government but rather capable of deciding for their own. Under this premise, the people are considered as having deep-seated attachments to their history and identity. Particular of which are scholars like Moore (2014) and Gries (2004a; 2004b) who often elicit concepts such as face and collective self-esteem. Moore’s (2014) concept of face or the need to fulfill a nation’s “face needs” is hinged upon the notion that such a character dwells from the Confucian values that are still evident to this day in contemporary Chinese society. Enhanced by Putnam’s (as cited by Moore, 2014, p. 226) notion of two-level games – first level is domestic and the second is state in relation to another state – and analyzed through the case of the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands dispute, states have face needs that have to be satisfied. Such utilization of an unusual framework in analyzing state behavior and foreign policy takes off from the criticism that mere confinement of state behavior into a set of theoretical assumptions cannot fully explain why it is difficult for China and Japan to find optimal solutions to the disputes (p. 237). Notably, however, the claim that such an over articulation and need for restoring self-esteem is not unique between Moore (2014) and Gries (2004a; 2004b). This is evidenced by Liao’s (2013) utilization of social constructivism and Wang’s (2014) analysis of Chinese nationalism through the CMT complex as discussed in the foregoing paragraphs. This field, formerly dominated by Western/Western-educated scholars who intend to understand how the government mobilizes its people to support its every move, some Asian/Asian-educated scholars have now stepped into the scene, trying to understand, at most on the grassroots level, the worldviews of the Chinese people.

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State of the Literature

The existing debates on the use of humiliation narratives to elicit support translating to legitimization activities is wide, however, the discourse has not left the stage on whether it is orchestrated or innate amongst the public. Domestically, the literature confirms that the invocation of the narratives fuel Chinese nationalism structurally through programs such as the patriotic education campaign act. However, pieces of evidence and episodes of collective memory point to how the Chinese strongly identify themselves in terms of national identity with or without the invocations of such narratives. Discussions on the shifting of a national ideology – from communism to nationalism – are also abundant. However, remaining scarce is the literatures on how can these eventually determine a state’s behavior. The continuing aggression in claiming disputed territories is nothing but uncharted, yet, traditional theoretical views on state behavior remain as the dominant way of analyzing China. This study intends to fill that gap in the existing literature by looking into how humiliation narratives serve to legitimize the Chinese foreign policy.

Conclusion

As provided for by authors analyzing Chinese nationalism and foreign policy, three key ideas emerge: 1) that the century of humiliation is always a major part of the narrative of Chinese national agenda in each generation of leaders; 2) that this, through the patriotic education campaign and consistent propaganda from the government, has now generated popular nationalism – a tool utilized by CCP leaders to maintain stability and to achieve national unification; and 3) that all of national agendas are meant to deliver a single message: that only the CCP can only save China. The message has always been present from Mao’s victor narrative all the way to Deng, Jiang, Hu, and Xi’s utilization of the victimization narrative. The humiliation part, no matter how optimistic or pessimistic its existence in every generation’s historical memory, plays a huge role in delivering said message. Despite paradigmatic shifts from a strictly Marxist-Leninist-Mao Zedong Thought worldview to being more pragmatic-multilateral-

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oriented (Chai, 2003), one thing remains constant: that the narratives have intended to elicit it is that only the CCP can save/rejuvenate/unite China (Wang, 2013). The aforementioned notions are widely shared among China watchers. However, the current policies, particularly the Chinese Dream, spearheaded by President Xi Jinping, begs the question developed as a research gap in this literature review: with growing domestic pressures from the public, how can China make itself understood by the rest of the world, maintaining a peaceful external environment whilst not compromising the calls of the public? The reviewed books and journal articles mostly analyze the implications of Chinese nationalism and foreign policy. However, what is puzzling the international community right now is the way China tries to project itself to the world – specifically, how it interacts with other states despite the fact that its neighbors view it as aggressive. The literature review established why the Chinese government sees the necessity of taking a hardline stance on issue that are within the scope of China’s national rejuvenation – most controversial of which is the reclaiming of lost territories, including Taiwan, the South China Sea along with the disputed islands.

References

Atanassova-Cornelis, Elena. (2012). “Chinese Nation Building and Foreign Policy: Japan and the US as the Significant ‘Others’ in National Identity Construction.” East Asia, vol. 29, pp. 95-108. Berkofsky, Axel. (2016). “’The Chinese Dream’ and Chinese Foreign and Security Policies – Rosy Rhetoric vs. Harsh Realities.” Asia-Pacific Review, vol. 23, no. 2, pp. 109-28. Brittingham, Michael Alan. (2007). “The ‘Role’ of Nationalism in Chinese Foreign Policy: A Reactive Model of Nationalism and Conflict.” Journal of Chinese Political Science, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 147-66. Callahan, William. (2004). “National Insecurities: Humiliation, Salvation, and Chinese Nationalism.” Alternatives, vol. 29, pp. 199-218. Carr, E. H. (1990). What is History? London: Penguin Books. Chai, Winberg. (2003). “The Ideological Paradigm Shifts of China’s World Views: From Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to the Pragmatism-Multilateralism of the

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Deng-Jiang-Hu Era.” Asian Affairs: An American Review, vol. 30, no. 3, pp. 163-175. Creswell, John. (2014). Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches. California: Sage Publications, Inc. Flick, Uwe. (2009). An Introduction to Qualitative Research, 4th Ed. California: Sage Publications, Inc. Galtung, Johan. (2001). “The Construction of National Identities for Cosmic Drama: Chosenness-Myths-Trauma (CMT) Syndromes and Cultural Pathologies.” In P. Udayakumar. (Ed). Handcuffed to History. Westpoint: Praeger. Gries, Peter. 2004a. “Nationalism and Chinese Foreign Policy.” In Yong Deng and Fei-Ling Wang. (Eds). China Rising: Power and Motivation in Chinese Foreign Policy. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. –––––––—. (2004b). China’s New Nationalism: Pride, Politics, and Diplomacy. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hao Yufan and Ying Hou. (2009). “Chinese Foreign Policy Making: A Comparative Perspective.” Public Administration Review, vol. 69, pp. 136-141. He Yinan. (2007). “History, Chinese Nationalism, and the Emerging Sino-Japan Conflict.” Journal of Contemporary China, vol. 16 no. 50, pp. 1-24. Heywood, Andrew. (2013). Politics. 4th Ed. Palgrave Macmillan: New York. Jakobson, Linda, and Manuel, Ryan. (2016). “How are Foreign Policy Decisions Made in China?” Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 101- 110. Liao Ning. 2013. “Dualistic Identity, Memory-encoded Norms, and State Emotion: A Social Constructivist Account of Chinese Foreign Relations.” East Asia, vol. 30, pp. 139-160. Moore, Gregory. (2014). “‘In Your Face:’ Domestic Politics, Nationalism, and ‘Face’ in the Sino-Japanese Islands Dispute.” Asian Perspective, vol. 38, pp. 219-240. Pierce, Roger. Research Methods in Politics. London: Sage Publications, Inc. Sorensen, Camilla. (2015). “The Significance of Xi Jinping’s ‘Chinese Dream’ for Chinese Foreign Policy: From Tao Guang Yang Hui to Fen Fa You Wei.” Journal of Chinese International Relations, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 53-73. Townsend, James. (1992). “Chinese Nationalism.” The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, no. 27, pp. 97-130. Wang Fei-Ling. (2005). “Preservation, Prosperity, and Power: What Motivates China’s Foreign Policy?” Journal of Contemporary China, vol. 14, no. 45, pp. 669-694.

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Wang Zheng. (2008). “National Humiliation, History Education, and the Politics of Historical Memory: Patriotic Education Campaign in China.” International Studies Quarterly, vol. 52, pp. 783-806. ––—––——. (2013). “The Chinese Dream from Mao to Xi.” Retrieved from http://thediplomat.com/2 013/09/the-chinese-dream-from-mao-to-xi. ––—––——. (2014). “The Chinese Dream: Concept and Context.” Journal of Chinese Political Science, vol. 19, pp. 1-13. Wang Zhengxu and Yu You. (2016). “The Arrival of Critical Citizens: Decline of Political Trust and Shifting Public Priorities in China.” International Review of Sociology, vol. 26, no. 1, pp. 105-124. Weiss, Jessica Chen. (2015). “Popular Protest, Nationalism, and Domestic- International Linkages in Chinese Politics.” In Scott, Robert and Stephen Kosslyn. (Eds). Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., pp. 1-13. Wendt, Alexander. (1999). Social Theory of International Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Yang Lijun and Chee Kia Lim. (2010). “Three Waves of Nationalism in Contemporary China: Sources, Themes, Presentations, and Consequences.” EAI Working Paper No. 155. Zhang Jian. (2015). “China’s New Foreign Policy under Xi Jinping: Towards ‘Peaceful Rise 2.0’?” Global Change, Peace & Security: Formerly Pacific Review: Peace, Security, & Global Change, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 1-15. Zhang Qingmin. (2014). “Towards an Integrated Theory of Chinese Foreign Policy: Bringing Leadership Personality Back In.” Journal of Contemporary China, vol. 22, no. 89, pp. 902-922. Zhao Suisheng. (2000). “Chinese Nationalism and its International Orientations.” Political Science Quarterly, vol. 115, no. 1, pp. 1-33. ––—––—––—. (2005). “China’s Pragmatic Nationalism: Is it Manageable?” The Washington Quarterly, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 131-144. ––—––—––—. (2013). “Foreign Policy Implications of Chinese Nationalism Revisited: The Strident Turn.” Journal of Contemporary China, vol. 22, no. 82, pp. 535-553. Zhu Tianbiao. (2001). “Nationalism and Chinese Foreign Policy.” The China Review, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 1-27.

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Alvin A. Camba

Philippine-China Relations and China’s Belt and Road Initiative*

Introduction

n 2013, President Xi Jinping announced the Belt and Road Initiative I(BRI), which aims to centralize Chinese capital in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), expanding trade, infrastructure, and connectivity of East-Southeast Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and Europe.1 The BRI’s emergence initiates one of the most crucial debates in development studies in decades: Is China the savior of, or the new colonizer in, the developing world? In the Philippines, previous executives were constrained by domestic politics or foreign policy positions. During Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s administration (2001-2010), the Philippines and China embarked on a joint maritime venture in the South China Sea and expanded political- economic relations. But despite growing political ties with Beijing, Arroyo’s administration eventually canceled the two biggest Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) projects – the Northrail and ZTE Corporation’s proposed National Broadband Network. Approximately 20 other projects were canceled. Similarly, tense bilateral relations under former President Benigno S. Aquino III (2010-2016) explain the absence of major Chinese official development assistance (ODA) and development finance projects during his administration. At the start of Aquino’s term, Chinese foreign investment was targeted to fund

* Paper based on a presentation given at the “Forum on Philippines-China Relations: Geopolitical Perspectives and Realities,” organized by the Philippine Association for Chinese Studies (PACS) and the Department of International Studies, Miriam College and held at the Little Theater, Miriam College, Quezon City on November 8, 2018. 1 O’neill, Daniel. (2018). Dividing ASEAN and Conquering the South China Sea: China’s Financial Power Projection. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

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more than 10 major investment and aid projects. Aquino himself visited Beijing in 2011 and acquired the commitment of the Chinese government to provide more US$13 billion worth of aid and investments. However, the Scarborough Shoal issue led to the triumph of an anti-China coalition in Aquino’s own cabinet, which limited Chinese development finance and loans in the Philippines. In contrast, President Rodrigo Duterte’s presidency opened the country to a greater amount and scope of funding from the BRI. His 2016 visit to China brought an earmarked $24 billion worth of Chinese FDI and ODA for the Philippines. This essay explains what China’s Belt and Road means to the Philippines. It argues that the Belt and Road cannot be fully understood using the lens of geopolitics, which paints BRI as a security threat or as China’s benevolent gift to the developing world. Rather, the BRI enables host countries to borrow foreign capital to fund infrastructural development, which is crucial to build up a country’s productive base and pursue medium to long-term economic strategy. The BRI’s success or failure is not predetermined but depends on host country features. The paper is structured as follows. First, it will discuss the dominant interpretations of the Belt and Road in the policy and media circles. These interpretations could simply be narrowed down to the hawkish and benign interpretations of the BRI, which are limiting and tend to obfuscate more important issues. Second, this paper points to five key nuances that both interpretations understate in their analysis: host state features, elite politics, multiple Chinese actors, relative autonomy of the SOEs, and host state actors. And finally, the paper discusses how the Belt and Road is an opportunity for the Philippines to expand infrastructure spending on key projects that have been ignored by multilateral development banks (MDBs) or other financiers. Since the Philippines is attempting to catch up and compete with other regional competitors, acquiring funding outside the Western funders and capital markets can better enable the Philippines to compete in the 21st century.

Dominant Interpretations of the Belt and Road

There are two dominant interpretations of Belt and Road. On one hand, security studies and foreign policy think tanks situate the BRI within China’s geopolitical ambitions, often linking the Communist Party’s strong

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political and financial hold over Chinese state-oriented enterprises and the high interest rates of Chinese policy banks to the “debt trap.” From Patrick Mendis and Joey Wang’s “soft budget constraints,”2 to Deepak Lal’s grim assessment of the developing world.3 While some concerns merit consideration, more popular ones tend to be exaggerations or distortions built upon stereotypes of China. Such depictions draw attention away from the actual limitations of BRI, which the paper enumerates below. In their views, Chinese economic capital – FDI, development finance, and other forms of official finance – is inherently tied to economic statecraft and security issues. These views carry over to Western news outlets which often treat China as a corruption-inducing and resource-seeking player. For instance, the New York Times reported that “China is worsening the climate crisis” by funding 50 new coal plants across Africa. These cases, wherein reporters typically misinterpret and sensationalize the data, are common among major newspapers, which show how Western media tend to be unfair in getting the empirics right and capitalizing on historically entrenched stereotypes to unfairly describe China and the developing world. This is not to say that the Belt and Road is without any project problems. China has relied on importing massive inputs of resources to fuel its manufacturing economy.4 In the early 1990s, Chinese FDI and development finance targeted these natural resources in the developing world, propagating deindustrialization, natural resource dependency, and socio-environmental disruptions in the developing world.5 Furthermore, Chinese engagements generated political and security concessions for Beijing, such as recognizing the One-China Policy, votes in the United Nations on human rights or multilateral interventions, or support against The Hague arbitration’s ruling on the South China Sea.

2 Mendis. Patrick, and Wang, Joey. (2018). “Belt and road, or a Chinese dream for the return of tributary states? Sri Lanka offers a cautionary tale.” South China Morning Post. Retrieved on October 24, 2018 from https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/ article/2127415/belt-and-road-or-chinese-dream-return-tributary-states-sri. 3 Lal, Deepak. (2018). “Beijing is creating debt traps to turn countries into vassal states.” The Nassau Institute. Retrieved on October 24, 2018 from https://www.nassauinstitute. org/chinas-belt-and-road-initiative-is-becoming-a-massive-debt-trap. 4 Ho-Fung Hung. (2015). The China Boom: Why China Will Not Rule the World. New York: Columbia University Press. 5 Gallagher, Kevin, and Porzecanski, Roberto. (2010). The Dragon in the Room: China and the Future of Latin American Industrialization. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Retrieved from https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=20122.

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On the other, the Chinese state, pro-China think tanks, and media organizations portray the Belt and Road in a completely positive light,6 ignoring the negative socio-environmental disruptions and potential negative spillovers. They have painted BRI as completely benign since as early as the Hu Jintao era. Across the world, the Chinese media apparatus, Confucius institutes, and other pro-China organizations echo these depictions. However, these depictions must coincide with China’s increasingly alarming after the 2010 financial crisis, which led to the economic slowdown and the leadership transition to Xi Jinping. Indeed, since China has emerged to be an important investor and financier, new geo-economic considerations and other political considerations have exacerbated the conditions for China’s foreign capital export. Beijing altered the direction of Chinese economic capital to help rebalance from export-led manufacturing to consumption-driven growth. Chinese foreign investments, construction contracts, and development finance now target a broad portfolio of strategic and non-strategic assets across a variety of sectors. Indeed, Chinese ownership or equity can be found in ports, railways, and e-commerce across different countries. China has become less forgiving of debts and loans that developing countries accrue, which is a stark departure from its behavior in the early 2000s. For instance, Beijing has recently decided to acquire equity returns in Sri Lanka, Djibouti, and Pakistan.7 These actions point to the CCP’s greater desire to accord political and security considerations to Chinese economic capital. As the future of US leadership in the Asia Pacific Region remains unclear under the Trump administration and with more economies relying on Chinese economic capital, the BRI appears to be a bid to compete for power and influence across a rapidly changing world. It should be noted that BRI is not a new policy but instead evolved from China’s Going Out policy. However, unlike the BRI, the Going Out Policy grew out of China’s decentralized approach to the role of Chinese state

6 Mulvaney, Brendan S. (2015). “One Belt, One Road includes benefits for all.” People’s Daily Online. Retrieved on October 24, 2018 from http://en.people.cn/n/2015/0331/ c90780-8871690.html. 7 Camba, Alvin. (2017). “China’s Port Acquisitions in Sri Lanka and Djibouti: Lessons on Chinese Development Finance for the Philippines.” Stratbase ADR Institute for International Studies. Retrieved on October 24, 2018 from https://www.researchgate.net/ publication/320170328_China’s_Port_Acquisitions_in_Sri_Lanka_Djibouti_Lessons_ on_Chinese_Developmental_Financing_for_the_Philippines.

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oriented enterprises (SOEs) within China’s own borders.8 The Going Out policy was highly decentralized and it gave power to a variety of competing actors in China’s borders. In the early 2000s, China’s inevitable economic growth and increasing welfare gains among its population led to Chinese capital exports to various destinations in the developing world. At this time, China also increasingly engaged in various overseas development assistance practices under the programs facilitated by the Chinese policy banks – the Chinese Export-Import Bank, the Chinese Development Bank, and the Big-Four Banks. China started to grant government concessionary loans, preferential buyers credited, loan interest loans, revolving credits, and aid. These grants became available not only to Chinese companies or investors seeking to profit in the developing world or enact the Chinese state’s goals but also to host state companies who work with Chinese actors. In contrast, the Belt and Road concentrates the decision-making power of infrastructure in the hands of the Chinese state and the recipient government. There is a broader context to BRI’s appeal. Western development agencies increasingly began to shift their funding from infrastructure spending and economic productivity to social welfare and human component expenditure, which limited the ability of the developing world to increase their capacity in the value chain.9 Available Western funding for infrastructure in commercial banks and other sources often require longer time horizons and demand higher interest rate payments. A comparison between China’s funding and Japan is more appropriate. China’s funding is more expensive than Japan in the long-term, but Japanese loans are often more expensive in the short-term due to insurance premiums.

What Explains the Impact of the Belt and Road

Dominant scholarly and policy discourses around the BRI revolve around China’s security considerations and geopolitical significance. Nonetheless, the developmental impact of BRI depends on other factors which vary across different host countries.

8 Ho-Fung Hung. (2015). The China Boom. p. 187. 9 Brautigam, Deborah. (2009). The Dragon’s Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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First, the impact of BRI’s infrastructural funding and loans vary across different parts of the world. An important and often understated aspect is host state features, which would increase or decrease the risk brought by BRI’s financing. These features include the credit rating of countries, currency reserves, state capacity, local politics, and social context. Indeed, the Center for Global Development published a systematic study of the BRI, arguing that 23 out of 65 countries will face debt risk due to their unfavorable host state characteristics. This more nuanced take accepts that BRI does generate risk, but the degree varies across countries and partly come from the receiving country’s end. Second, internal politics matter to the decision making and implementation of BRI projects. Project commitment and progression depend on a domineering national political elite, a “strongman,” or centralized governments who are positively predisposed towards Beijing and can redirect the host state’s development strategy toward BRI financing. For instance, Ma- laysia’s Najib Razak, Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte, and Indonesia’s Jokowi Widodo represent such committed national political elites. However, after project commitment, project progression, implementation, and eventual completion are shaped by the nuances of host country politics. Highly politically centralized regimes enable the strongman or national political party to close ranks, whereas more decentralized regimes constrain the strongman’s ability to punish defecting local elites. This contrast could easily be seen when Razak spearheaded the East Coast Railway’s (ECRL) construction with little opposition from regional- local elites, the Sultans, or political parties.10 In the Philippine case, Duterte’s attempt to expedite the Bicol South Railway Project (South Rail) was hindered by a coalition of regional-local elites who were competing for rail station to ensure their family’s dominance in the provinces for centuries to come. Understanding the nuances of the host state would unravel the determinants and actual developmental implications of BRI projects. Third, international relations scholarship has often treated China as a unitary actor when it comes to foreign policy. While some scholars agree with the SOE’s relative autonomy, they assign greater analytical weight

10 Hurley, John, Morris, Scott, and Portelance, Gailyn. (2018). “Examining the Debt Implications of the Belt and Road Initiative from a Policy Perspective.” Center for Global Development. Retrieved on October 24, 2018 from https://www.cgdev.org/article/chinas- belt-and-road-initiative-heightens-debt-risks-eight-countries-points-need-better.

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to the party-state because of government’s guaranteed financing and political influence.11 The CCP does have the power to appoint the leaders of the SOE, but the actual operations and direction of these companies operate with some significant degree of relative autonomy. In other words, instead of a top-down relationship between the CCP and SOEs, the actual decisions depend on negotiations, compromises, and shared governance.12 Indeed, it has often been argued that the CCP has the power to make major, path breaking decisions, but the actual governance of everyday operations are left to the SOEs. This argument comes from the broader literature on the political economy of Chinese development, which emphasizes decentralized governance and competing local-level actors. This characterization of a fragmented and often less coordinated Chinese state contradicts the often unitary and homogenous treatment from international relations scholarship. Fourth, there are multiple Chinese actors engaging in the host state. There is variation among Chinese investment activity in terms of asset specificity, sectoral distribution and investment size. There is no singular characteristic “Chinese investor.” Instead, there is a multiplicity of national and regional state-owned enterprises, provincial entrepreneurs and private investors. The varying histories of the host state prefigure how SOEs have entered the region. For example, China’s support of numerous anti- colonial struggles during the Cold War paved the way for Beijing’s strong involvement in sub-Saharan Africa. Stronger ties between the African political parties and the CCP go back to their Cold War origins. Southeast Asia’s own Chinese population and the historical Kuomintang (KMT) networks have worked with PRC SOE and private capital. Indeed, PRC investments in mining and offshore gambling often have Taiwanese KMT and Macau partners. Even illicit activities, such as smuggling of drugs in the Philippines, are not simply pushed by PRC investors but by the broader KMT networks as well. In contrast, PRC’s engagement with Latin America emerged in the late 1990s. Latin America’s “second stage” of neoliberalism required a massive market for natural resource export. China also became a major

11 Shambaugh, David. (2013). China Goes Global: The Partial Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 12 Chih-shian Liou. (2014). “Rent-seeking at home, capturing market share abroad: the domestic determinants of the transnationalization of china state construction engineering corporation.” World Development, vol. 54, pp. 220-231.

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investor of development finance and loans in Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil. And finally, the BRI narrative understates the role of SOEs and recipient countries in shaping project outcomes. Indeed, SOEs, private Chinese firms, and host state companies matter to BRI projects. In the former, Chinese firms compete to acquire PRC financing to fund overseas projects in order to profit from the guaranteed material sourcing. For instance, a World Bank black listed Chinese company made a bid for Marawi’s reconstruction and got the approval of the Philippine government. While the PRC started to limit outbound outflows without government approval and take money laundering seriously, many PRC actors still evade their country’s regulation. Patrick Ho, a member of the CEFC China Energy-backed China Energy Fund Committee, was recently arrested by the US Fedral Bureau of Investigation on charges of allegedly bribing the government officials of Chad and Uganda.13 In the latter, regional and local firms use their national government networks to get Chinese funding. In turn, PRC partners agnostically go along with the operation. These types of cases tend to occur in countries with significant local government deregulation. These projects become overpriced, economically less viable, or at worse, can illegally operate for profit. For instance, Kenneth Cardenas (2017) argued that the initial group of Chinese consortiums that President Duterte brought have partnered up with questionable Philippine companies.14 In these cases, both the Chinese state and host state national governments do not gain from the project’s completion due to the enormous overhead costs and negative social impact.

What Does It Mean for the Philippines?

During the Aquino administration, infrastructure financing was largely conducted using the Private-Public Partnerships, which relied on

13 Lum, Alvin. (2018). “Patrick Ho’s lawyers accuse US authorities of using ‘illegally’ obtained evidence in charges for US$2.9 million corruption scandal.” South China Morning Post. Retrieved on October 24, 2018 from https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law- crime/article/2142504/patrick-hos-lawyers-accuse-us-authorities-using-illegally. 14 Cardenas, Kenneth. (2017). “Duterte’s China Deals Dissected.” Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism. Retrieved on October 24, 2018 from https://pcij.org/stories/ dutertes-china-deals-dissected.

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Philippine conglomerates to build, plan, and fund the project. Drawing from capital markets that experienced a huge influx of US dollars because of the US Federal Reserves’ quantitative easing, the Philippine conglomerates experienced huge spurts of growth during the Aquino administration. However, medium- to long-term planning to increase Philippine competitiveness and alleviate quality of life concerns were placed at the back burner in favor of macroeconomic stability and maintaining a positive credit grade rating. When quantitative easing ended in 2015, most of the hot money placed in Philippine conglomerates left the region in favor of the recovering American markets. These occurrences hampered Philippine development, which needed an influx of capital to facilitate infrastructural development, increase competitiveness, and diversify economy sources. If used and facilitated correctly, the BRI can increase the competitiveness of the Philippine economy. This list of approved projects will likely be used to offset increasing shortages and sustain economic growth in the Philippines. While the Chico River Dam Project aims to supply water to 8,700 hectares of agriculture land and 4,350 farmers across 21 barangays, the Kaliwa Dam can generate 600 million liters of water per day to Metro Manila.15 Both projects were initially proposed in the 1970s during the Marcos administration and even slated to be funded by the World Bank but ultimately shelved because of civil society and local opposition as well as the lack of urgency during those times. However, the likelihood of water defiance in Metro Manila, Bulacan, Cavite, and Tanay, and low agricultural productivity across the country, make both projects urgent in the short-term and necessary for long-term growth. Infrastructure deficiency has also constrained economic growth and quality of life.16 The Subic Clark Railway Project, a 70-km cargo rail, seeks to increase the movement of goods between the Subic and Clark freeports, which have been major areas of growth and employment in Northern Luzon. While the project endeavors to include transportation to Clark International Airport and then New Clark City, the initial project aims to reduce reliance on trucks and increase connectivity in the special

15 Cal, Ben. (2017). “P12.2-B Kaliwa Dam project to augment Metro Manila water supply.” Philippine News Agency. Retrieved on October 24, 2018 from http://www.pna.gov. ph/articles/1053324. 16 Chua, George. (2015). “Economic effects of traffic in Metro Manila.” BusinessMirror. Retrieved on October 24, 2018 from https://businessmirror.com.ph/2015/03/12/ economic-effects-of-traffic-in-metro-manila.

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economic zones.17 With the success of Subic Port as an alternative port of entry in the Philippines, a projected exponential growth of ship entry and traffic in the region is anticipated. As Subic and Clark have been clusters of chip assembly, import entries, and employment generation outside Metro Manila, the construction of a cargo train that increases movement and eases traffic will contribute to economic growth. Unlike Northern Luzon, Bicol and the whole of Southern Luzon have lagged in economic development. In this context, the Chinese-funded PNR South Rail involves a highspeed rail across nine stations: Manila, Los Baños, Batangas City, Lucena, Gumaca, Naga City, Legazpi City, Sorsogon City, and Matnog. From Manila to Bicol, the reliance on bus transportation and the increasing amount of vehicle traffic in the across the provinces shows that the growing internal demand. For instance, business process outsourcing (BPO) expansion in Laguna has increased vehicular use in the province.18 Similar issues have occurred in Southern Luzon and Bicol provinces. The China-funded bridge projects, free under the current plans, target long-term traffic and predict likely growth. While the positive impact of the two bridges on traffic is debatable,19 analysis on current vehicle usage ignores the fact that population and vehicle growth will most likely continue for decades. In other words, acting only when the problems occur instead of meeting these challenges ahead largely contributed to traffic congestion. Furthermore, the current composition of projects makes a debt trap unlikely. According to the current list of approved and pipeline (grant, loans) projects in the Philippines, more than half are funded by the Japanese International Corporation Agency and the Asian Development Bank (40 projects). Indeed, in the list of currently approved China projects, there are currently two China grant projects for bridges, which would be free under the scheme, and two development finance projects.

17 Navales, Reynaldo. (2018). “Angeles council endorses Subic-Clark Railway Project.” SunStar. Retrieved on October 24, 2018 from https://www.sunstar.com.ph/article/1768072. 18 Orellana, Faye. (2018). “DPWH: Brace for heavy traffic in San Pedro, Laguna with repair of bridge.” Philippine Inquirer. Retrieved on October 24, 2018 from https://newsinfo. inquirer.net/1001073/dpwh-brace-for-heavy-traffic-in-san-pedro-laguna-with-repair-of- bridge. 19 Schuengel, Frank. (2018). “Why rebuilding the Rockwell Bridge makes no sense.” Visor. Retrieved on September 24, 2018 from https://visor.ph/traffic/why-rebuilding-the- rockwell-bridge-makes-no-sense.

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While there are 16 more China projects in the list, two of these are the discussed train projects, some are interprovincial roads, and most are the China grant bridge projects. Some of these might not come to fruition given the difficulties of already existing projects and vetting system. Indeed, Duterte’s $24 billion package in 2016, most of the FDI and aid projects were canceled because of the stringency of the bureaucracy, infighting among host state partners, or findings of feasibility studies. In sum, the Chinese-funded projects have a growing internal demand to meet, making it more likely for the Philippines to generate enough growth to pay for the project costs and sustain long-term economic development

Conclusion

This article discussed what and how BRI can help the Philippines. It suggested that geopolitics or international relations couldn’t fully account for the impact of BRI. Taken from a political economy perspective, the BRI increases the options for the developing world to pursue infrastructural development. BRI can bring foreign direct investment, construction contracts, and development loans to host country projects. The paper also argued that numerous factors have shaped China’s economic capital and BRI projects, particularly host state foundations, elite politics, multiple Chinese actors, and the relative autonomy of SOEs and host state firms. The article also examined the key projects that BRI has initially targeted in the Philippines. While there are dangers and risks to the Chinese loans, these projects make sense given the Philippine economy’s internal demand for services.

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Darlene Estrada

China’s Belt and Road Initiative, Public-Private Partnership Model and State-Owned Enterprises: Considerations for the Philippines*

Introduction

ll eyes are on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as it unfolded in the Alast five years and provided a picture – although incomplete – of what it really is and how it works. Analyses, however, remain limited to perspectives that behind the initiative, a monolithic China is at work. Although it is, indeed, Xi Jinping – both as general-secretary of the Communist Party of China and president of the People’s Republic of China – who has championed the initiative through consistent and intensive efforts to promote it, other actors such as state-owned enterprises and the private sector play an equally important role in the implementation of BRI. The Philippine government remains receptive of the BRI given its congruence to the Philippines’ domestic goal of ushering a “golden age of infrastructure” under President Rodrigo Duterte’s regime. But while the Philippines and China have aligned goals when it comes to infrastructure plans, there remains a need to have a more thorough assessment of the risks and opportunities attached to Philippine participation in the BRI, especially in the face of a volatile geopolitical and economic environment. The Philippines has a number of practical considerations that still need to be addressed – an important one being the financial and operational aspect. In a recent statement, He Lifeng, deputy head of the National Deve- lopment and Reform Commission (NDRC), mentioned that China will

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make use of Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model to provide financial channels to the BRI participating countries.1 The Department of Finance, earlier this year, declared the Philippine government’s preference for “hybrid” PPP deals in carrying out its infrastructure plans.2 A hybrid PPP strategy entails that “the government completes a project then transfers it to the private sector for maintenance, operations, and marketing.”3 Following the same strategy, the Philippine government works with the advantage of having the means to borrow at lower rates through grants and concessional loans. A common PPP strategy is at view, but a number of considerations arise: what exactly does engaging in PPP with China entail? The BRI ground progress would show that despite China’s declaration of preference of tapping its private sector, in reality, most project partners turn out to be Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs).4 Recent proclamations from China’s State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commis- sion of the State Council (SASAC) stated that SOEs will play a leading role in the BRI.5 With this, there surfaces a need to carefully examine what China’s PPP Model is, and how SOEs work under the BRI PPP Model. Understanding such will not only provide the Philippine government important information on how China envisions project implementation but also give insights on Chinese SOEs strategies and priorities, and on a more operational level, how to engage and communicate with them and foster the best enabling environment to maximize benefits and minimize risks in implementing individual projects. In context, this paper identifies SOEs as less recognized but equally important role player behind the BRI and attempts to explore how it works, what its strategies and priorities are, and what best ways to deal with it.

1 Council Information Office. (2017). “China to promote PPP model in Belt and Road Initiative.” Retrieved from http://www.scio.gov.cn/m/32618/ Document/1540101/1540101.htm. 2 Department of Finance. “Gov to apply hybrid formula in implementing PPP projects.” Retrieved from http://www.dof.gov.ph/index.php/govt-to-apply-hybrid-formula-in- implementing-ppp-projects. 3 Oxales, Orlando. (2017). “Hybrid PPP.” Retrieved from http://2040.neda.gov. ph/2017/04/10/hybrid-ppp. 4 Bloomberg News. (2017). “In China, public-private partnerships are really public-public.” Retrieved from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-27/in-china-public- private-partnerships-are-really-public-public. 5 Zhong Nan. (2017). “SOEs to take lead role along Belt and Road.” Retrieved from http:// www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2017-05/09/content_29258516.htm.

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China’s BRI and PPP Model

The BRI aims to relive the ancient Silk Road by building an overland route from China to Western Europe, sweeping through South Asia and South East Asia, Russia, the Persian Gulf, the Middle East, North Africa, and the Mediterranean. This first component is called the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) which consists of six economic corridors, namely: a) the New Eurasia Land Bridge, PRC-Mongolia-Russia, PRC-Central Asia-West Asia, PRC-“Indochina Peninsula,” PRC-Pakistan, and Bangladesh-PRC-India-Myanmar corridors; b) a number of railroad connections; and c) a few gas and oil pipelines to be built. The 21st Maritime Silk Road (MSR) is BRI’s second component. It is a maritime route which runs southbound down the east coast of China, through the South China Sea and into the South Pacific before heading westbound through the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. The concept of a Maritime Silk Road dates back to as early as the 19th century, when ancient merchants traveled the route of China’s eastern coast, southernmost region of India, East Africa, the Persian Gulf, and the Red Sea to enhance economic and cultural relations. The Chinese government, led by the National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Ministry of Commerce, issued the Vision and Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road in March 2015. In the document, the initiative’s major goals were declared. These goals include policy coordination, facilities connectivity, unimpeded trade, financial integration, and people-to-people bonds. In a span of five years, China’s BRI gained ground and grew even more popular than it originally was. Projects underway include Gwadar Port in Pakistan, sections of the Kunming-Singapore railway link, the Khorgos dry port between China and Kazakhstan, and the freight trains from China to Tehran and London.6 On the other hand, the 2016-2017 China National Image Global Survey released earlier this year by the Academy for Contemporary China-World Studies, Kantar Millward Brown, and Lightspeed reported a significant increase to 16 percent in the BRI global awareness, which was

6 Frank, Knight. “New Frontiers: Prospects for Real Estate Along the Belt and Road Initiative.” (2018). Retrieved from http://content.knightfrank.com/research/1438/ documents/en/new-frontiers-the-2018-report-2018-5216.pdf.

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only eight percent in 2014.7 What did not change much, however, are the questions associated to the initiative. To this day, one would have to battle the difficulty of looking for reliable sources in finding out which projects actually belong to the BRI and which ones are mere Chinese overseas infrastructure investments, and how arrangements and contracts are being finalized. Much of the literature would say that these questions more often than not result to apprehensions among partner states or even observers as to how and why China is implementing the initiative. The lack of clarity urges parties to look into what is observable. China’s declared preference over a PPP Model but in reality uses SOEs appears to be another question.

China’s PPP Model

Earlier this year, China’s NDRC declared its preference over PPPs in carrying out BRI project financing. Following this mechanism, the process would involve PPP project operators directly soliciting money from the capital market. The process also entails that social security funds and insurance premiums would likewise be allowed to invest in projects. The use of a PPP mindset is not entirely new in China. PPPs in China were developed in the late 1980s, but it was only in 2014 that the financing mode seemed to have gained ground, propelled by the issuance of guidelines on how it was to be implemented. To date, there are more than 1,000 PPP projects in China, valued over $100 billion, providing services in transport and communication, energy, clean water, wastewater treatment, and a variety of social services.8 In the article “Public-private partnerships in China: A responsive participation,” LooSoo Beh explained that there are three reasons behind China’s utilization of PPP: 1) the inadequacy of investment in public facilities and services against a backdrop of high rate of urbanization and relatively low standard of public facilities and services; 2) insufficiency of funding sources for public facilities and services given that the main source is government funds; and 3) the slow reforming of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and poor

7 Guo, Martin. “2016-2017 China National Image Global Survey.” (2018). Kantar. Retrieved from https://us.kantar.com/business/brands/2018/2016-2017-china-national- image-global-survey. 8 Asian Development Bank. (2014). “Public-Private Participation in Urbanization in the People’s Republic of China.” Retrieved from https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/ publication/42860/public-private-partnerships-urbanization-prc.pdf.

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provision of public facilities and services.9 Drawing on these, the Chinese government had made an evident switch from relying on traditional public procurement methods to looking into private entities as alternative means of providing public infrastructure and services. The same period of PPP development also captured how China’s private sector evolved through time to become the present primary driving force of the Chinese economic growth, as argued by Nicholas Lardy in the book Markets over Mao: The Rise of Private Business in China. Lardy pointed out that by giving up control of market prices for most consumer goods and permitting private firms to expand while the state somehow pulled back, the government has allowed for the share of industrial activity to become the domain of the private sector. However, he also underscored the important role of the state in facilitating and influencing such process. With this, the broader context of private sectors becoming more and more important in Chinese economy helps justify PPP as a model for its initiative. A workshop organized by the Asian Development Bank (ADB)noted the wider scope of the PPP agenda in China, going beyond mobilizing financial resources and expertise to deliver public services. According to the ADB report, PPPs were agreed to be a means to integrate a performance-based management framework that can strengthen the quality of public services and reduce costs.10 Apart from offering an efficient framework for project implementation, a number of factors also point out to PPP as China’s best model for its BRI projects and these are infrastructure gaps, investment through equity interests, legal impediments, joint ventures and project financing as the driving factors making PPP the most viable option for BRI projects.11 To elaborate: 1. The BRI would be looking to nations with the appetite for infrastructure development but are aiming fill their infrastructure gaps through equity investments of which PPP model strongly supports; 2. The BRI would support the Chinese government’s proactive advocacy

9 Beh, LooSoo. (2010). “Public-Private Partnerships in China: A responsive participation.” Hournal of US-China Public Administration, vol. 7, no. 8. Retrieved from http://unpan1. un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/UN-DPADM/UNPAN042408.pdf 10 Asian Development Bank. (2014). 11 Cuthbert, Neil, and Choudry, Atif. (2016). “One Belt One Road PPP Alchemy -Is the Silk Road Paved in Gold?” Retrieved from https://www.dentons.com/en/insights/guides- reports-and-whitepapers/2016/december/22/one-belt-one-road-ppp-alchemy-is-the-silk- road-paved-in-gold

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of encouraging outbound investment in the form of equity stakes in projects and assets across the globe; 3. The PPP model would ease attaining ownership, or at least strict control, over infrastructure through awarding concessions; 4. The PPPs also provide a convenient way to promote projects to contractors who intend to get into joint ventures with foreign entities; and 5. Chinese companies becoming increasingly comfortable with a project financing model which provides for off-balance-sheet financing of the project. The PPPs could also be appreciated as a complementary model for China’s strategic partnership diplomacy of engaging the world through a non-alliance policy. Partnerships, not alliances, therefore, effectively serve as a significant policy instruments for China in realizing its strategies and goals. However, if one probes into the projects that have already commenced, it turns out that most project partners are not private Chinese firms but SOEs. One explanation to this is what analysts argue that with PPP, China defines the non-government partner as “social capital”12 instead of “private capital,” and this paves the way for SOE participation.13

State-Owned Enterprises

Chinese state-owned enterprises have played a significant role in the span of the country’s economic history. These state enterprises took over the task of rebuilding the country in 1949 after having been devastated by a long period of war and poor economic development. The SOEs provided employment and a range of social services such as education, medical care and retirement benefits.14 Chinese SOEs have also undergone long processes of transformation under the economic reform and opening up policy in 1978.

12 Xinhua. (2016). “China to expand public-private partnerships.” Retrieved from http:// english.gov.cn/premier/news/2016/07/08/content_281475389117934.htm. 13 Bloomberg News. (2017). “In China, public-private partnerships are really public-public.” 14 Fan Gang, and Hope, Nicholas. (2013). “The Role of State-Owned Enterprises in the Chinese Economy.” In Economic Relations in the Next 10 Years. China-United States Exchange Foundation’s US-China 2022. Retrieved from https://www.chinausfocus.com/2022/wp- content/uploads/Part+02-Chapter+16.pdf.

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In 1999, the Chinese government was faced with the reality that it could no longer rely on growth from domestic markets alone. The government then promoted overseas Chinese investments through the “Go Out Policy,” which mandated Chinese firms to invest and operate outside China’s premises and take advantage of the booming world trade.15 This prompted China to forge bilateral partnerships and cooperate on infrastructure development with many states. By 2003, China’s overseas investments rose to US$35 billion from US$3 billion in 1999, primarily driven by state- owned enterprises (SOEs).16 Given such background, one could appreciate the long history and great value of SOEs to China. This time, it is being used to take a leading role in the implementation of the BRI. According to Xiao Yaqing, “SOEs are the market backbones. They have their own plans and strategies for the Belt and Road drive, in addition to the country’s overall blueprint for the initiative.”17 The government believes that central SOEs project the ability, advantage and expertise as it have lengthy experiences in setting up and operating transportation, energy, telecommunication and power projects.18 These SOEs are supervised and managed by the SASAC State Council. Among the responsibilities of SASAC are “supervising the preservation and increment of the value of the state-owned assets of the supervised enterprises; establishing and improving the index system of the preservation and increment of the value of the state-owned assets, and works out assessment criteria; supervising and administering the preservation and increment of the value of the state-owned assets of the supervised enterprises through statistics and auditing; and it is responsible for the management work of wages and remuneration of the supervised enterprises and formulates policies regulating the income distribution of the top executives of the supervised enterprises and organizes implementation

15 China Policy. (2017). “China Going Global: Between Ambition and Capacity.” Retrieved from https://policycn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/2017-Chinas-going-global- strategy.pdf. 16 Wijeratne, David, Rathbone, Mark, and Wong, Gabriel. (2018). “A Strategist’s Guide to China’s Belt and Road Initiative: A new global megaproject, unparalleled in scope and ambition, presents vast opportunities and risks for multinationals.” Global Perspective, no. 90. Retrieved from https://www.strategy-business.com/feature/A-Strategists-Guide-to- Chinas-Belt-and-Road-Initiative?gko=a98e0. 17 Zhong Nan. (2017). “SOEs to take lead role along Belt and Road.” 18 Zhong Nan. (2017). “SOEs to take lead role along Belt and Road.”

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of the policies.”19 In other words, SASAC was responsible for the reforms implemented on SOEs. It is also in charge of appointing top executives, consolidating any mergers or sales or assets, and crafting laws relevant laws.

What Does this Mean for the Philippines?

The issue presents an opportunity to understand what China’s interests are behind BRI. With the SOEs’ seven “strategic” sectors and seven designated “basic or pillar” industries, one would be able to see what China deems as most important to pursue. In 2006, China enumerated seven “strategic” sectors and held that the state would keep “absolute control.” These include defense, electricity generation and distribution, petroleum and petrochemicals, telecoms, coal, civil aviation, and waterway transport.20 The “basic” industries that also remains to be significantly promoted by the government include machinery, automobiles, information technology, construction, steel, base metals, and chemicals.21 Clearly, these will be the priority sectors that China will or is currently looking for in partner countries. A study by Amighini, Rabellotti and Sanfilippo in 2012 analysed determinants of Chinese outbound foreign direct investments (ODI) in the period from 2003 to 2008 and compared findings between SOEs and privately owned firms.22 The findings discussed how strategic motivations is clearly characterizing the internationalization of both state-owned and controlled firms. The SOEs were distinguished as being more invested as resource-seekers, while private firms are more asset-seekers. The study stated that market size is a consideration for both firms groups but they respond differently to market affluence as SOEs are more inclined to partner with the poorest among the low-income countries whereas private

19 SASAC. “Main Functions.” Retrieved from http://en.sasac.gov.cn/n1408028/n1408521/ index.html. 20 Development Research Center of the State Council and the World Bank. (2013). “China 2030: Building a Modern, Harmonious, and Creative Society.” World Bank Publications. Retrieved from https://www.worldbank.org/content/dam/Worldbank/document/China-2030-complete.pdf 21 Development Research Center of the State Council and the World Bank. (2013). “China 2030: Building a Modern, Harmonious, and Creative Society.” 22 Amighini, Alessia, Rabellotti, Roberta, and Sanfilippo, Marco. (2012). “Do Chinese SOEs and private companies differ in their foreign location strategies?” EUI Working Paper. Robert Schuman Center for Advanced Studies. Retrieved from http://cadmus.eui. eu/bitstream/handle/1814/22388/RSCAS_2012_27.pdf?sequence=1.

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ones follow a more conventional location strategy. This explains why distance and political instability in partner countries does not hinder the SOEs to secure access valuable resources for China’s development. This also reflects the SOEs leeway to expand abroad being led by broader national strategic priorities, instead of corporate strategies.23 This should not be surprising because China has always been open in expressing its need for resources. However, for the Philippines, one implication that needs strategic considerations is the fact that it would be dealing with Chinese owned firms and in a sense, the goals and strategies of these firms reflect that of the Chinese government’s which is very much different from private companies. And with its different nature, the SOEs may just pose different risks – which could be political, financial, or operational. The Philippine government needs to formulate a nuanced way of dealing with SOEs as these are different from the “private” that it is used to interacting with in PPPs.

Conclusion

The underlying complexity of engaging with SOEs through BRI is seen because of different interpretations in China’s definition of PPP Model, going beyond just the private sector to include state-run firms. This phenomenon presents challenges to partner states in formulating ways on how to deal with SOEs. The different nature of SOEs in terms of goals and strategies necessitates a nuanced response and a carefully thought out plan so as to ensure win-win deals with partner states. The Philippines have long employed regulatory rules and laws in carrying out PPP deals in the country. What it needs to do is ensure the continuous and judicious use of these institutional safeguards for the purpose of protecting Philippine interests. It is imperative that a comprehensive understanding of the initiative and each specific project under it to be able to balance the risks and benefits. In the end, an enabling environment for good cooperation deals between the Philippines and China under the BRI would be one where risks and benefits are carefully assessed, feasibility studies conducted, and project contracts containing clear terms and agreement on how terms will be interpreted and implemented.

23 Development Research Center of the State Council and the World Bank. (2013). “China 2030: Building a Modern, Harmonious, and Creative Society.”

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Rommel C. Banlaoi

Comparing State Responses in Addressing Violent Extremism, Terrorism, and Muslim Separatism in the Philippines and China: Towards Counterterrorism Cooperation*

Introduction

hough the Philippines and China still have enormous differences on Tconflicting sovereignty claims in the South China Sea, they, however, share common security challenges that can strongly encourage bilateral cooperation rather than conflict. Non-traditional security issues of maritime piracy, illicit trafficking (of arms, drugs, human), terrorism, environmental degradation, disaster management, economic development, poverty alleviation and food security, among others, are areas of common interests where both countries can cooperate for mutual benefits.1 Specifically, the Philippines and China face common security problems emanating from violent extremism and terrorism where both countries can learn from each other’s exemplary practices in armed conflict management, peace promotion, and nation building.

* Updated version of an original paper presented at the “National Conference on Ethnic Chinese as Filipinos: Special Focus on Mindanao,” organized by the Philippine Association for Chinese Studies (PACS), and held at Ateneo De Davao University in Davao City on May 11-13, 2012. 1 For more discussions, see Banlaoi, Rommel C. “Combatting Transnational Crimes and Illicit Activities in the South China Sea: Current Situation and Proposal for the Implementation of the DOC.” Paper presented at the international conference on “Implementing the DOC and Cooperation Mechanism in the South China,” organized by the National Institute of South China Sea Studies (NISCSS), in Haikou, Hainan, China on August 14-15, 2014.

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This paper aims to describe the problem of violent extremism and terrorism emanating from Muslim separatism in the Philippines and China. It compares the responses of their respective governments to address the interrelated problems of violent extremism, terrorism, and Muslim separatism. It analyzes the strengths and limitations of these responses for conflict management, peace promotion and nation building. It argues that comparing state responses on the subject is significant in raising the awareness of Chinese and Filipinos (especially ethnic Chinese as Filipinos) who are interested to see the improvement of the bilateral relationship of these two countries for economic, political, social, and cultural reasons. Raising awareness of Filipinos and Chinese on this issue can improve people- to-people contact and encourage friendly exchanges among their academics, public officials, businesspersons, and even ordinary citizens towards counterterrorism cooperation.

Challenges of Violent Extremism, Terrorism, and Muslim Separatism in the Philippines and China

Violent extremism, terrorism, and Muslim separatism are contested concepts in the academe. Policy makers, journalists and ordinary persons used these three concepts ambiguously, if not confusingly. According to the United Nations Security Council Resolutions on Violent Extremism, “violent extremism refers to the beliefs and actions of people who support or use ideologically-motivated violence to activate radical, ideological, religious, or political views.”2 This view, however, remains problematic conceptually and operationally. Simply put, violent extremism is an intolerant faith, belief, ideology or worldview that endorses and glorifies the use of violence against others not sharing that faith, belief, ideology or worldview.3 At present, violent extremism is associated with terrorism where there is also no commonly acceptable definition. But the United Nations describes

2 United Nations Office of Counter Terrorism. “Plan of Action to Prevent Violent Extremism.” Retrieved on June 11, 2019 from https://www.un.org/counterterrorism/ctitf/ en/plan-action-prevent-violent-extremism. 3 Banlaoi, Rommel C. “Updates on Violent Extremism in the Philippines.” Lecture delivered at a public forum on “Violent Extremism” held at Miriam College on March 11, 2019.

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terrorism as “criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstance unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or any other nature that may be invoked to justify them.”4 This paper argues that violent extremism provides justification for various acts of terrorism. Some Muslim separatist groups worldwide commit acts of terrorism as part of their violent struggle. Challenges of violent extremism and threats of international terrorism emanating from Muslim separatist groups can be traced from the end of the Cold War in the 1990s during the global and regional trends in Islamic resurgence.5 From the bipolar power politics of the Cold War, the post-Cold War era hastened the return of ethnic nationalism and the revival of identity politics in the study of internal armed conflicts and inter-state relations.6 Ethnic nationalism and identity politics are some of the drivers of Muslim separatism in the Philippines and China. The “Balkanization” of Eastern Europe in the aftermath of the Cold War also inspired separatist aspirations of some Muslim nationalists around the world. The rise of transnational Islam after the September 11, 2001, also known as 9/11, terrorist attacks on the United States also heightened the Islamic consciousness of many Muslims in Africa, Asia, and Europe and encouraged Muslim activists to pursue their struggle for freedom, independence, and self-determination.7 These wide arrays of issues resulted in the rise of violent extremism in the 21st century associated with Muslim separatism. Being hosts to a minority of Muslim population with a feeling of economic marginalization and political exclusion, the Philippines and China were not immune from the unintended security consequences of Islamic resurgence in the Muslim world. The Muslims in the Philippines represent five percent

4 For more discussions, see United Nations Office of Counter Terrorism. “Key Documents/ Activities.” Retrieved from https://www.un.org/en/counterterrorism/index.shtml 5 Sadain, Mehol K. (1994). Global and Regional Trends in Islamic Resurgence: Their Implications on the Southern Philippines. Pasay City: Center for International Relations and Strategic Studies of the Foreign Service Institute. 6 For more discussions on identity politics and separatist violence, see Banlaoi, Rommel C. (2012). Bangsamoroism and the Nexus of Identity Politics and Violent Extremism in the Southern Philippines. Cotabato City: Institute for Autonomy and Governance Policy Brief. 7 See Banlaoi, Rommel. (2009). “Transnational Islam in the Philippines.” In Peter Mandaville, et. al. (Eds). Transnational Islam in South and Southeast Asia: Movements, Networks, and Conflict Dynamics.Seattle: National Bureau of Asian Research, pp. 167-188.

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or 4 million of the country’s total population.8 The Muslims in China, on the other hand, represent 1.5 percent or 20 million of the country’s total population.9 Though not all Muslims in these two countries have separatist orientation, the Philippines and China share the same problem on how to address politically organized groups of Muslims aspiring for self- determination through greater autonomy or a separate statehood. Muslims in the Philippines identify themselves as Moros. Though Moros are found all over the country, they are concentrated largely in Mindanao, particularly in the conflict-affected provinces of Sulu, Basilan, Tawi-Tawi, Maguindanao, and Lanao del Sur. Outside of the Philippines, some Moro communities are found in Sabah, which at present is under the contested control of Malaysia, and in Brunei and Indonesia. The Philippine government describes Muslims in the Philippines as Muslim Filipinos. But radical and ethno-nationalist Muslims in the Philippines prefer to call themselves as Moros and not Filipinos.10 Only a few Muslims in the Philippines are separatists in orientation. Most of those who have acquired a separatist stand are associated originally with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and eventually with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). The MNLF abandoned its separatist position when it entered into peace talks with the Philippine government leading to the signing of the Tripoli Agreement of 1976 and the Final Peace Agreement (FPA) in 1996. The MILF also left behind its separatist cause when it also entered peace talks with the Philippine government leading to the signing of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro in 2014 and the passage of the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) in 2018. However, the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), Ansar Khalifa Philippines (AKP), and now defunct Maute Group still pursue a separatist position in order to establish an Islamic state.11 These groups, particularly the ASG, used to be aligned with Al-Qaeda. But

8 The World Bank. (2003). Social Assessment of Conflict-Affected Areas in Mindanao.Manila: The World Bank Philippines Post Conflict Series No. 1, pp. 9-10. 9 See McKinney, Evan W. (2006). China’s Muslims: Separatism and Prospects for Ethnic Peace. MA Thesis, Naval Post-Graduate School, Monterey, California. 10 For a seminal work on this concept, see Asana, Abdurasad. Moros Not Filipinos. Marawi City: Bangsamoro Research Center, nd. 11 Banlaoi, Rommel C. (2012). “Bangsamoroism and the Nexus of Identity Politics and Violent Extremism in the Southern Philippines.” Institute for Autonomy and Governance Policy Brief.

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since 2014, all these groups have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Most Muslim Filipinos have been integrated into the mainstream Philippine society. Some of their political leaders have even entered mainstream Philippine politics. But the intermittent violent activities of Moro separatists in the southern Philippines continue to threaten peace and order in the country. In its Country Reports on Terrorism published in September 2018, the US Department of State claims that the Philippines remains as a “terrorist safe haven” because of the violent activities of Moro separatist groups. Complicating this dreadful situation is the depressing reality that these Moro separatist groups not only have tactical alliances with each other but they also have some “violent entrepreneurial relations” with some corrupt elected local officials and with a few misfits in the police and the military sectors.12 In China, most Muslims call themselves as Uyghurs. They are Turkic people who live mainly in Xinjiang province. Other Uyghurs are found in Gansu and Ningxia provinces.13 A small number of Uyghurs also stays in Hunan province, particularly in Taoyuan County. Outside of China, communities of Uyghurs are found in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and small communities live in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Turkey. Muslim separatists come largely from the Uyghur communities in Xinjiang and they are associated with the following militant groups: East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), East Turkestan Liberation Organization (ETLO), Eastern Turkestan Independence Organization (ETIO), Uyghur Liberation Organization (ULO), Eastern Turkestan Liberation Front (ETLF), Free Turkestan Movement (FTM), and the United National Revolutionary Front of East Turkestan (UNRF).14 Though some Uyghurs argue that they are being alienated from the mainstream Chinese society, China’s Uyghur separatists are very small in number, poorly equipped, loosely linked, and vastly outgunned by the

12 For an excellent study on this topic, see Lara, Francisco Jr., and Schoofs, Steven. (Eds). (2013). Out of the Shadows: Violent Conflict and the Real Economy of Mindanao. London: International Alert. 13 See Starr, S. Fredrick. (Ed). (2004). Xinjiang: China’s Muslim Borderland. New York: Central-Asia Caucus Institute. 14 For more references, see Millward, James. (2004). Violent Separatism in Xinjiang: A Critical Assessment. Washington D.C.: East-West Center; Dwyer, Arienne M. (2008). The Xinjiang Conflict: Uyghur Identity, Language Policy, and Political Discourse. Washington: East-West Center; and Davis, Elizabeth Van Wie. (2008). “Uyghur Muslim Ethnic Separatism in Xinjiang, China.” Honolulu: Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies.

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Chinese police and the military.15 But their violent activities continue to cause security and public safety problems for the Chinese government. During the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Chinese government blamed Uyghur separatists for perpetrating most of the bombing incidents in China. Not all Muslims in China are Uyghurs. There are ethnic Chinese Muslims who call themselves as Hui.16 Most Hui communities are found in Ningxia. They have no separatist inclination. They are, in fact, closely assimilated into the mainstream Chinese society. The ethno-genesis of Islamic consciousness and identity of the Uyghurs of China and the Moros of the Philippines predate the rise of statehood in both countries. Uyghurs and Moros have already existed before the birth of the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of the Philippines, respectively. Moros and the Uyghurs who are separatists in orientation believe that they have distinct national identities already formed prior to formation of the Philippines and Chinese states. They stress that they used to enjoy independence until they were colonized, dominated, and controlled by the Christian government (in the case of the Philippines) and the Han government (in the case of China). Prior to colonization, the Moro historical narrative stresses that Moros used to enjoy their freedom under two major sultanates that blossomed in the 17th century: the Sultanate of Sulu and the Sultanate of Maguindanao. These two sultanates resisted Spanish, American, and Japanese colonialism until they were forcibly incorporated into the Philippine Republic in 1946.17 In their own historical narrative, the Uyghurs, on the other hand, claimed that they used to live independently under the Islamic Uyghur Kingdom of East Turkestan. The Uyghur Kingdom flourished from the ninth century until the Manchu empire invaded the nation in 1876.18 The growth of Uyghur nationalism began in the 1920s through the writings of Uyghur nationalists and intellectuals.19

15 Rubin, Barry. (2009). Guide to Islamist Movements. New York: M.E. Sharpe. 16 Dillon, Michael. China’s Muslim Hui Community. (1999). Surrey: Curzon Press. 17 Majul, Cesar. (1999). Muslims in the Philippines. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press. 18 C. Mackerras, C. “Xinjiang at the Turn of the Century: The Causes of Separatism.” Central Asian Survey, vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 289-303. 19 Bhattacharya, Abanti. (2003). “Conceptualising Uyghur Separatism in Chinese Nationalism.” Strategic Analysis, vol. 27, no. 3, p. 361.

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State Responses in Countering Violent Exteremism and Muslim Separatism in the Philippines and China

To address the problem of Muslim separatism, the Philippines and China employ various approaches to manage domestic conflicts, maintain internal peace, and promote national unity. Because of specific characteristics of their historical experiences and the particular feature of their current domestic political systems, the two countries developed different tactical and operational measures on how to solve the problem which, ironically, are anchored on a similar strategic objective to integrate their Muslim communities into their mainstream society under a single state.

The Philippine Response The Philippine government has been promoting the policy of integration and assimilation to answer the Moro Question.20 Towards this end, the Philippine government implements some affirmative actions to solve the underlying conditions of Moro separatism. It even originally created the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) to accommodate the political aspiration of Muslims in the Philippines for self-determination. The ARMM does not represent the whole of Mindanao with 26 provinces. It is composed of only five provinces in Basilan (except Isabela City), Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao (except Cotabato City), Sulu and Tawi-Tawi. Other provinces of Mindanao are outside the administrative jurisdiction of the ARMM. It has more than 4 million population, 90 percent of which are Muslims. The head of the ARMM is called governor and is directly elected by the people in the ARMM areas. However, there were criticisms that there was no “genuine autonomy” in the ARMM because it was still heavily controlled by the Central Government, particularly in the appropriation of government funding.21 Thus, Moro rebels associated with the MILF rejected the ARMM.

20 For a good read on this topic, see Turner, Mark, May, R.J., and Turner, Lulu Respall. (Eds). (1992). Mindanao: Land of Unfulfilled Promise. Quezon City: New Day Publishers. Also see Tuazon, Bobby. (Ed). (2008). The Moro Reader: History and Contemporary Struggles of the Bangsamoro People. Quezon City: Center for People Empowerment in Governance. 21 Bacani, Benedicto R. (2004). Beyond Paper Autonomy: The Challenge in Southern Philippines. Makati City and Cotabato City: Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the Center for Autonomy and Governance.

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The MILF, a splinter group of the MNLF, wants to replace the ARMM with a new political entity called the Bangsamoro with a ministerial form of government. On October 15, 2012, the Philippine government and the MILF signed the Framework of Agreement on the Bangsamoro (FAB) to provide a roadmap for the creation of a Bangsamoro Government that will replace the ARMM upon the signing of a comprehensive peace agreement.22 During the administration of then President Ferdinand E. Marcos, the government pursued a hard measure by implementing an all out war policy against the Moro rebels. President Corazon Aquino initiated peace talks with the Moro rebels until the FPA with the MNLF was signed in 1996 under President Fidel V. Ramos. In fact, President Ramos provided the Philippine government’s overall framework for the promotion of peace talks with the Moro rebels. He created the National Unification Commission (NUC) in 1992, which formulated the Six Paths to Peace in 1993. Until now, the Six Paths to Peace informs the National Peace Plan of the national government being currently implemented by the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process. The Six Paths to Peace aim to accomplish the following peace initiatives: 1. The pursuit of social, economic, and political reforms that address the root causes of the armed conflicts. The recommendations include a set of “immediate doable” which are governmental actions that set the direction and push the necessary reform to address the identified root causes. The most commonly expressed root causes in the NUC consultations were: a. Massive and abject poverty and economic inequity, particularly in the distribution of wealth and control over the resource base for livelihood; b. Poor governance (including lack of basic social services, absenteeism of elected local officials, corruption, and inefficiency in government bureaucracy) and poor implementation of laws (including those that should protect the environment); c. Injustice, abuse of those in authority and power, violations of human rights, and inequity, corruption and delays in the administration of justice; d. Structural inequities in the political system, including control by an elite minority, traditional politicians and political dynasties, and enforcement of such control through private armies; and

22 For a copy of the framework of agreement, see “The 2012 Framework of Agreement on the Bangsamoro.” Retrieved from http://www.gov.ph/the-2012-framework-agreement-on- the-bangsamoro/.

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e. Exploitation and marginalization of indigenous cultural communities, including lack of respect and recognition of ancestral domain and indigenous legal and political systems. Serious concerns were also expressed about, among others, the destruction for the natural environment, the conduct of counterinsurgency campaign, and the continuing hardships experienced by communities in the midst of armed conflict. 2. Building consensus and empowerment for peace. This path includes people’s participation in the peace process and continued consultations for constructive exchange between government and local communities, especially on issue with direct impact on the life of the community. 3. Pursuit of a peaceful negotiated settlement with the different armed rebel groups. This path involves continued and vigorous efforts to conduct exploratory talks (these have not yet been initiated or completed), hold formal peace negotiations, and achieve a final negotiated peace settlement with each of the armed rebel groups. 4. Establishment of programs for honorable reconciliation and reintegration into mainstream society. This includes amnesty to respond to concerns for legal status and security and a program of community-based economic assistance for former rebels. The proposed amnesty program presents twin measures – one for the rebels from all armed groups, and the other, applicable to agents of the state charged with specific crimes in the course of counter-insurgency operations. 5. Addressing concerns that arise out of the continuing armed hostilities. To ensure maximum protection and welfare of non-combatants in the midst of the fighting four activities were proposed along this path: a. Local suspension of offensive military operations for a fixed period; b. Increasing the effectiveness of legal protection of non-combatants, through a multi-track dissemination and information campaign on laws and regulations for combat behavior and the protection of non-combatants in the midst of armed conflict, official review of compliance with these laws and regulations, and vigorous prosecution and punishment of those found guilty of violation; c. Intensified delivery of basic services to conflict areas by civilian government; and, d. Respect and recognition of “peace zones” as agreed upon by the concerned sectors of the community. 6. Nurturing a positive climate for peace. This includes confidence- building measures between government and the armed groups, and peace

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advocacy and education within the rest of society. Finally, as recommended by the National Unification Commission (NUC), President [Fidel] Ramos has created the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, which shall be fully dedicated to the pursuit of a just, comprehensive and lasting peace, and in managing the day-to-day needs of this comprehensive peace effort. The NUC shall cease to exist when this new Office shall be fully operational. When President Joseph Estrada took power, he implemented an all out war against the MILF in 2000. But President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo continued the peace talks with the MILF in 2001 and this culminated in the initial signing of the Memorandum of Agreement on the Ancestral Domain (MOA- AD) in 2008. But the Philippine Supreme Court declared the MOA-AD unconstitutional, which angered some radical commanders of the MILF. In 2009, a new radical group separated from the MILF. Members of this new group call themselves as Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF). When President Benigno S. Aquino III assumed office in 2010, he pursued peace talks with the MILF and declared an “all out justice” against the BIFF and other lawless elements of the MILF, including rouge factions of the MNLF and bandit members of the ASG. As a result of the peace negotiations between the Philippine government and the MILF, a Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) was signed on January 25, 2014. Both parties agreed to expand the geographic scope of the ARMM to include some municipalities in Lanao del Norte and North Cotabato. This “expanded ARMM” would be called the Bangsamoro Government pursuant to the FAB signed between the Philippine government and the MILF in October 2012.23 On the basis of CAB, the Philippine Congress passed the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) on July 24, 2018 and was signed into law on July 26, 2018. With the signing BOL, the MILF already relaxed its concept of self- determination. From separation, the MILF already accepted to be part of the Philippine Republic, but with its own independent government that is ministerial in form. As a result of the plebiscite held on January 29, 2019, the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) was established under the Bangsamoro Government. The BARMM already replaced the ARMM. However, armed groups adhering to the ISIS continue to fight for a separate Islamic state in the southern Philippines. These pro-ISIS groups were responsible for the siege of Marawi City that

23 “The 2012 Framework of Agreement on the Bangsamoro.” (2012).

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started on May 23, 2017 and ended on October 17, 2017.24 The Philippine government refuses to seek peace talks with these pro-ISIS groups because of their alleged involvements in various acts of terrorism. The Philippine government upholds a policy of not talking with terrorist organizations.

The Chinese Response

The Chinese government also implements its own affirmative actions to address the Uyghur separatism.25 It has an “open tolerance” policy, which aims to politically accommodate “national minorities,” including the Uyghurs, in building a “harmonious” Chinese society. It created the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) to give Uyghurs the political space to government themselves in accordance with state policies.26 The XUAR is located in northwest China. It covers around 1.66 million square km, which accounts almost 16 percent of the Chinese territory. It has 21 million populations, 60 percent of which are ethnic minorities. There are 47 ethnic groups in Xinjiang, mainly the Uyghur, Han, Kazak, Hui, Mongolian, Kirgiz, Xibe, Tajik, Ozbek, Manchu, Daur, Tatar, and Russian. The XUAR is headed by a chairman who is selected from the members of the Standing Committee of the National Peoples Congress (NPC). The XUAR is still strongly controlled by the Central Government. Thus, finding no real autonomy in XUAR, the Uyghur separatists demand for real independence by separating from China.27 Though the Chinese government has an “open tolerance” policy with “Muslim minorities,” it, however, implements a hard approach through its “crackdown” and “strike-hard” campaigns against three evils of separatism, extremism, and terrorism. Thus, the Chinese government does not initiate peace talks with the Uyghur separatists.28 In its “strike-hard” campaign against Uyghur separatists, the Chinese government has accelerated arrests,

24 For detailed discussions, see Banlaoi, Rommel C. (2018). “One Year After the Liberation of Marawi: Islamic State PH Still Alive.” Vera Files. 25 Clarke, M. (2008). “China’s ‘War on Terror’ in Xinjiang: Human Security and the Causes of Violent Uighur Separatism.” Terrorism and Political Violence, vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 271-301. 26 B. Sautman, B. (1998). “Preferential policies for ethnic minorities in China: The case of Xinjiang.” Nationalism and Ethnic Politics,vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 86-118. 27 Y. Shichor, Y. (2005). “Blow Up: Internal and External Challenges of Uyghur Separatism and Islamic Radicalism to Chinese Rule in Xinjiang.” Asian Affairs, vol. 32, no. 2, pp. 119-135. 28 See Chinese government white paper entitled “History and Development of Xinjiang.” Retrieved from http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/zt/zfbps/t36561.htm.

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trials, and sentencing of individuals involved in “separatism, extremism, and terrorism. The Chinese government has even supported the “global war on terrorism” led by the US to justify its crackdown on Uyghur dissent, particularly those engaged in various acts of political violence and terrorism.29 The Amnesty International, International Alert, and other human rights organizations have criticized the Chinese government for its hard measure against Uyghur separatists. But the Chinese government asserts that it needs to pursue the full force of the law against separatists in order to maintain peace and order and to promote national unity. The Chinese Constitution declared secession as illegal. Thus, the Chinese government pursues a hard line measure against secessionist forces. In March 2013, for example, Chinese courts sentenced from five years to life in prison 20 Uyghur activists found guilty of militant separatism. Like the Philippine government, the Chinese government also pursued assimilated policies that aimed to submerge Uyghur identities into the Chinese “Han” identity. The Chinese government offered limited autonomy to its minority people, including the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Its concept of “regional autonomy” is being applied to Xinjiang, Xizang, Ningxia, Guangzi and Inner Mongolia. In 2005, China’s State Council Information Office published the White Paper on “Regional Autonomy for Ethnic Minorities” in China. This White Paper articulates the Chinese government overarching policy against separatist groups in China. It describes China as a “united multi-ethnic country” with 56 ethnic groups “identified and recognized by the central government.”30 In order “to promote the common prosperity of all the ethnic groups” in China, the government promotes the following measures to prevent violent extremism associated with Muslim separatism: 1. Giving prominence to speeding up the development of ethnic autonomous areas. While formulating the national economic and social development plan, the central government gives full respect and consideration to the characteristics and needs of the ethnic autonomous areas, and gives strategic prominence to speeding up their development in accordance with the overall arrangement and general requirements of national development.

29 Clarke, Michael. (2008). “China’s ‘War on Terror’ in Xinjiang: Human Security and the Causes of Violent Uighur Separatism.” 30 White Paper on “Regional Autonomy for Ethnic Minorities in China.” (2005). Retrieved from http://english.people.com.cn/whitepaper/ethnic_minorities_2005/ethnic.html.

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2. Giving priority to and rationally arranging infrastructure projects in ethnic autonomous areas. When making arrangements for infrastructure construction and exploitation of resources in ethnic autonomous areas, the central government appropriately raises the proportion of investment and loans from policy banks, and grants the local areas reduction or exemption from supplementary funding according to their different conditions. 3. Strengthening financial support for ethnic autonomous areas. With the development of the national economy and the growth in financial revenue, governments at all levels have gradually increased transfer payments from the exchequer to ethnic autonomous areas. Through ordinary transfer payments from the exchequer, special-purpose transfer payments from the exchequer, transfer payments from the exchequer according to preferential policies regarding ethnic minorities, and other ways, the central government has increased the financial input in ethnic autonomous areas to promote their economic development and social progress, and gradually reduce the gap between them and the more developed areas. 4. Attaching importance to ecological construction and environmental protection in ethnic autonomous areas. All the four key areas and four key projects included in the National Ecological Environment Construction Plan of the Chinese government are in ethnic minority areas. The “Natural Forest Protection Project” and the projects for converting farming land for forestry and pasture are mostly in ethnic minority areas. 5. Adopting special measures to help ethnic autonomous areas develop education. The state helps ethnic autonomous areas universalize nine-year compulsory education and develop diverse forms of education. Ethnic autonomous areas are key target areas for the state’s plans to basically universalize nine-year compulsory education and basically eliminate illiteracy among the young and middle-aged population. 6. Strengthening assistance to impoverished ethnic minority areas. Since the mid-1980s, when the Chinese government launched its large- scale poverty-alleviation drive in an organized and programmed way, ethnic minorities and areas they live have always been key targets of governmental aid. 7. Increasing input into social services in ethnic autonomous areas. The state has increased input into health services in ethnic autonomous areas, to raise the level of medical care for the people of those areas. In 2003, the central government appropriated special funds totaling RMB1.37 billion for health services in Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Guangxi, Ningxia, and Tibet autonomous regions, which covered such aspects as public health, basic rural

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health facilities, specialized hospitals, rural cooperative medical services, and control of serious diseases. 8. Assisting ethnic autonomous areas to open wider to the outside world. The state grants more decision-making power to production enterprises in ethnic autonomous areas in managing foreign trade, encourages them to export local products and implement preferential border trade policies. It encourages and supports the ethnic autonomous areas to give full play to their geographical and cultural advantages in expanding their opening to and cooperation with neighboring countries. 9. Pairing off more developed areas and ethnic autonomous areas for aid. The Chinese government encourages better-off areas and ethnic groups to help those that are not well off yet, and attain common prosperity this way. Since the end of the 1970s, the Chinese government has organized the more developed areas along the eastern coast to provide corresponding aid to western areas and help ethnic minority areas develop their economies and public services. 10. Giving care to special needs of ethnic minorities in production and living. Respecting the customs of ethnic minorities, and to meet their needs for special necessities in production and living, the state has adopted a special policy for their trade and production of necessities.31 To strengthen state response against violent extremism and separatism, China passed a new legislation in 2018 creating a “re-education camps” in Xinjiang. These camps aim to eliminate “religious extremism” and Muslim separatism in China. Though highly criticized by human rights groups all over the world, China maintains that these camps essential for domestic stability and national unity. China’s current measures against terrorism are fully articulated in its most recent White Paper “The Fight Against Terrorism and Extremism and Human Rights Protection in Xinjiang,” published by the State Council Information Office in March 2019. This White Paper stresses candidly that terrorism “is the common enemy of humanity” requiring international cooperation to defeat it. It urges the need to prioritize “preventive counterterrorism approach” through deradicalization and international counterterrorism exchanges.32 The White Paper states that China “supports more

31 White Paper on “Regional Autonomy for Ethnic Minorities in China.” (2005). 32 “The Fight Against Terrorism and Extremism and Human Rights Protection in Xinjiang.” (2019). Beijing: State Council Information Office.

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pragmatic international cooperation in the fight against terrorism on the basis of mutual respect and consultation on an equal footing.”33

Lesssons Learned

Both the Philippines and China face the perennial problem of violent extremism, terrorism, and Muslim separatism. Though both countries have the same strategic objective to integrate Muslims in the mainstream society under a single state, their governments have adopted a different measure to counter Muslim separatism. The Philippines has emphasized soft approaches by pursuing peace talks with Muslim separatists while China has pursued harder approaches having criminalized acts of violent extremism and separatism. Though China also implements non-military measures to counter terrorist threats through rehabilitation and deradicalization programs, it adopts stricter approach compared to the Philippines. Their different approaches have something to with their understanding of the problem and the domestic context of the terrorist threats they face. For the Philippines, there is now recognition that the status quo is unacceptable. The Philippine government recognizes the right of Muslims in Mindanao to protect their identity and enjoy their right to self-determination. Thus, it recognizes the need for the creation of a separate government for the Bangsamoro under a single Philippine Republic. For China, however, there is a need to preserve the status quo as it regards Xinjiang as “an inseparable part of the unitary multi-ethnic Chinese nation.”34 The Chinese government regards Muslim separatists as a threat to the unity of the Chinese nation and to the integrity of the Chinese territory. In fact, the Chinese government considers Xinjiang as part of its “core interests” that should be defended and should not be negotiated. Thus, the Chinese government offers no room for peace talks with Muslim separatists. The Chinese government even declares Muslim separatists as terrorists. In its White Paper, the Chinese government underscores:

Some “East Turkistan” organizations openly stated that they would use terrorist and violent means to achieve their purpose of separation.

33 “The Fight Against Terrorism and Extremism and Human Rights Protection in Xinjiang.” (2019). 34 2003. “History and Development of Xinjiang.” China Defense White Paper on Xinjiang, Part 1. Retrieved from http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/zt/zfbps/t36561.htm.

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The “East Turkistan” forces in China’s Xinjiang and relevant countries plotted and organized a number of bloody incidents of terror and violence, including explosions, assassinations, arsons, poisonings, and assaults, seriously jeopardizing the lives, property and security of the Chinese people of various ethnic groups, and social stability in Xinjiang, and posing a threat to the security and stability of the countries and regions concerned.35

Conclusion

The Philippines and China have common experiences in facing threats emanating from violent extremism and Muslim separatism. But they have differences on how to counter these threats. The Philippines is pursuing a softer and more comprehensive approach that privileges political negotiations to address Muslim separatism in the southern Philippines. China is practicing a harder and stricter law enforcement approach in countering Muslim separatism in the province of Xinjiang. Because of their common experiences, albeit different approaches, in countering Muslim separatism, the Philippines and China can learn some lessons from each other’s practices. Exchanging views on their respective domestic practices can provide channels of communication that are essential to promote cooperation rather than competition in Philippines- China relations. Preventing and countering violent extremism associated with Muslim separatism is an area where the Philippines and China can pursue bilateral cooperation for mutual benefits.

35 2003. “History and Development of Xinjiang.”

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Rommel C. Banlaoi

Marawi City Siege and Its Aftermath: Opportunities and Challenges in Philippines-China Counterterrorism Cooperation*

Introduction

n May 23, 2017, armed men who claimed to be soldiers of the OIslamic State (IS)1 invaded Marawi City in the southern Philippines to establish what they called the province of the Islamic State in East Asia (ISEA) or the Wilayat Sharq Assiya. Isnilon Hapilon, from the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) in Basilan, led the armed men composed largely from members of the Maute Group in Lanao del Sur and supported by members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) from Maguindanao, Ansar Khalifa Philippines (AKP) from Sarangani, and foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs) from different parts of the Muslim world, mostly from Indonesia, Malaysia, and Arab countries. Hapilon was the anointed amir (head) of the Daula Islamiya Wilayatul Mashriq (DIWM) or the Islamic State Province in East Asia. Though the Marawi City siege was an internal security affair of the Philippines, it attracted the attention of many countries to be concerned because of the involvement of FTFs waging worldwide armed activities on behalf of IS. China was one of the many countries that offered help to the Philippine government to defeat IS in Marawi and to improve the capacity of the Philippine law enforcement authorities in countering threats of terrorism.

* An updated version of paper delivered at the international conference marking the 30th Anniversary of the Philippine Association for Chinese Studies held at Joy-Nostalg Hotel and Suites in Ortigas Center, Pasig City on December 2, 2017. 1 Originally known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or in Arabic, DAESH (ad- Dawlah al-Islãmiyah fī ‘l-‘Irãq wa-sh-Shãm).

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There is no doubt that the Marawi City Siege provided opportunities for the Philippines and China to deepen and widen their bilateral cooperation, specifically in counterterrorism cooperation. But there are also challenges that both countries need to overcome if they want their cooperation to reach a higher plane.

Counterterrorism Cooperation: A Framework for Analysis

Counterterrorism is an area of common interest where states deliberately cooperate. Existing scholarly studies on International Cooperation Theory (ICT) assert that states pursue cooperation in the state of international anarchy because of the beneficial outcome of cooperation.2 ICT rejects the realist theory of international relations arguing that states are bound to compete because of colliding national interests. Realist theory contends that states are egoistic entities where they view other states as threats to their national survival. Under realist theory, states are doomed to suffer conflict among each other. But ICT maintains that states can cooperate amidst international anarchy because of the principles of reciprocation and reputation. The principle of reciprocity assumes:

If you cooperate with me, then I will cooperate with you in the future; but if you do not cooperate, then neither will. If both actors take this position – as in the famous tit-for-tat strategy pairing – then ongoing cooperation is supported against current defection incentives by actors’ interest in maintaining cooperation into the future. This analysis opens up the possibility of cooperation and raises interesting questions regarding the conditions under which strategies of reciprocity promote cooperation.3

The principle of reputation, on the other hand, asserts that states maintain cooperation as a matter of national pride and prestige. ICT regards reputation as essential for effective diplomacy. Reputation encourages trust-building, which drives further cooperation.

2 Xinyua Dai, Snidal, Duncan, and Sampson, Michael. (2017). “International Cooperation Theory and International Institutions.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies. 3 Xinyua Dai, Snidal, Duncan, and Sampson, Michael. (2017). “International Cooperation Theory and International Institutions.”

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Counterterrorism drives the Philippines and China to cooperate because of their common desire to cooperate in this field. Though the Philippines and China have existing differences in territorial disputes in the South China Sea, they decide to cooperate because of the principles of reciprocity and reputation as advanced by ICT. Though ICT has its limitation in answering questions on why states still compete despite pursuing cooperation, the ICT appropriately frames why the Philippines and China decide to advance counterterrorism cooperation.

Philippines-China Counterterrorism Cooperation before the Marawi Siege

Though the Marawi City Siege has accelerated the Philippines-China counterterrorism cooperation, both countries started their cooperation in this field in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 (9/11) terrorist attacks on the United States. Bilateral cooperation in combatting terrorism has been fully documented in the book, Security Aspects of Philippines-China Relations: Bilateral Issues and Concerns in the Age of Global Terrorism.4 After the 9/11 incident, the Philippines and China enhanced their defense and military cooperation to combat terrorism when the Philippines attended the 9th Summit of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) hosted by China in October 2001, just a month after 9/11. At the sideline of the APEC Summit, the Philippines and China signed three agreements related to counterterrorism, to wit: • Treaty of extradition between the Philippines and China; • Memorandum of understanding on cooperation against illicit traffic and abuse of narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances, and precursor chemicals; and, • Memorandum of understanding on cooperation in combating transnational crime. In April 2002, then-Secretary of National Defense Angelo Reyes visited China to establish bilateral defense dialogue and intelligence exchanges on many security issues including international terrorism. Secretary Reyes even explored with then Minister of Defense Chi Haotian the possibility of joint military training and exercises in countering terrorism following their

4 Banlaoi, Rommel C. (2007). Security Aspects of Philippines-China Relations: Bilateral Issues and Concerns in the Age of Global Terrorism (Quezon City: Rex Book Store International.

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respective domestic laws. In June 2002, then-President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo issued Proclamation Number 148 declaring June 9 of every year as the “Philippines-China Friendship Day.” In September 2002, Minister Chi made a reciprocal visit to the Philippines with the theme, “Sustaining Friendship, Enhancing Cooperation.” During this visit, both countries announced the holding of the Annual Defense and Security Talk (ADST) to provide the two defense establishments an effective platform to exchange their views and outlook on regional security, South China Sea, international terrorism and non-traditional security issues. The principle of reciprocity has motivated the Philippines and China to further cooperate. The principle of reputation encourages both countries to sustain their cooperation. As a result, the Philippines and China held their first ADST in 2005 where both countries exchanged views on regional security issues, South China Sea disputes, international terrorism, and even cooperation on humanitarian assistance and search and rescue operations. In 2013, they held their 4th ADST but was discontinued after that when the Philippines filed an internal arbitration case against China as a result of the Scarborough Stand-off in 2012.5 The 5th ADST only resumed in 2017 when President Rodrigo R. Duterte pursued closer friendly ties with China. During the 5th ADST, both countries not only exchanged views on security issues of mutual interests but also identified areas of practical cooperation for mutual benefits. Aside from countering illegal drug trafficking, counterterrorism was one of the areas they identified where both countries could pursue practical cooperation.

The Marawi Siege: Opportunities in Philippines-China Counterterrorism Cooperation

The Marawi siege provided China and the Philippines to actualize practical cooperation in combating terrorism. The Chinese government received information that ISIS-linked Uyghur militants provided financial, logistical and manpower support to the Marawi siege.6 Even before the

5 For more discussions, see Ang See, Teresita and Sta. Romana, Chito. (Eds). (2013). Philippines-China Relations: Sailing Beyond Disputed Waters. Chinese Studies Journal, vol. 10. Quezon City: Philippine Association for Chinese Studies. 6 Interview with a Chinese security expert, March 29, 2019.

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Marawi siege, the Philippines and China already discussed in 2016 the prospect of counterterrorism cooperation under the new administration of President Rodrigo Duterte.7 Thus, during the Marawi siege, China immediately provided the Philippines counterterrorism assistance of RMB50 million covering the delivery of 3,000 assault rifles and RMB6 million rounds of ammunition to support the Philippine military’s urban battle against ISIS fighters. Weapons included sniper, automatic and high-precision rifles. President Rodrigo Duterte himself tested one of them. In his speech during the handover ceremony on June 6, 2017, Chinese Ambassador to Manila Zhao Jianhua said this counterterrorism assistance “is a demonstration of our growing bilateral relationship. It’s also a demonstration of a new era of a friendly and cooperative relationship between our two militaries.”8 China also provided the Philippines about RMB10 million worth of livelihood projects for families of Filipino troops wounded during the battle. The Marawi siege demonstrated the importance of counterterrorism cooperation to improve the overall bilateral relations between the Philippines and China.9

Opportunities in the Aftermath of Marawi Siege

At the announcement of the liberation of Marawi on October 24, 2017, President Duterte specifically thanked China for providing weapons that killed terrorist leaders Isnilon Hapilon and Omarkhayam Maute. Though the United States also provided ground assistance during the Marawi siege in the form of intelligence exchange, tactical advise, and drone reconnaissance, President Duterte gave special attention to China’s counterterrorism support.

7 Banlaoi, Rommel C. “The Philippines and China: Prospects for Counterterrorism Cooperation.” Paper delivered at the “Bilateral Symposium, Beyond Conflict: The Future of China-Philippines Relations,” organized by Jinan University, Philippine Association for Chinese Studies, and Philippine Institute for Peace, Violence and Terrorism Research and held at Edsa Shangri-la Hotel, Ortigas Center, Philippines on July 30, 2016. 8 Remarks delivered by Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Zhao Jian Hua during the handover ceremony held in Clark, Pampanga on June 6, 2017. 9 Banlaoi, Rommel C. “Marawi City Siege and Its Aftermath: Opportunities and Challenges in Philippines-China Counterterrorism Cooperation.” Paper delivered at the international conference marking the 30th Anniversary of the Philippine Association for Chinese Studies, held at Joy-Nostalg Hotel and Suites, Ortigas Center, Pasig City on December 2, 2017.

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After the Marawi liberation, China announced another fresh aid to the Philippines amounting to RMB150 million to support the rehabilitation and rebuilding of the most affected areas in the war-torn city. China also turned over US$3 million worth of heavy equipment (dump trucks, cement, and mixers, excavators and bulldozers) to be used in the recovery, reconstruction and rehabilitation activities in Marawi City. Chinese and Filipino firms even formed a consortium for the Marawi Rehabilitation Project. Counterterrorism cooperation was one of the major reasons for the revival of the ADST of the two countries that went dormant during the administration of President Benigno Aquino III. On December 15, 2017, the Philippines and China resumed the ADST after holding its last meeting in 2013. As stated earlier, the Philippines and China inaugurated the ADST in 2005 during the administration of President Arroyo. Recent agenda of ADST under President Duterte centered on defense and security cooperation in addressing non-traditional security challenges, such as terrorism and violent extremism, as well as man-made and natural disasters. Discussions also covered cooperation in Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Response and cooperation in the maritime domain, especially in the South China Sea. Both countries also agreed to bolster cooperation in the area of military training and education, particularly those units involved in counterterrorism.

Challenges in Counterterrorism Cooperation

Some concomitant challenges are affecting effective counterterrorism cooperation between the Philippines and China. These challenges emanate from different threat perceptions and security outlooks, ideological and legal orientations of counterterrorism policies, as well as institutional and bureaucratic arrangements for counterterrorism. 10

10 Portions of this section are culled from Banlaoi, Rommel. “Counterterrorism Cooperation Between China and Southeast Asian Countries: Current Status, Challenges and Future Directions.” Paper prepared for the workshop on “China-ASEAN Non-Traditional Security Cooperation: Progress, Problems, and Prospect,” organized by the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies Singapore and held on April 26, 2019.

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Threat perceptions and security outlooks

Though China and the Philippines agree to cooperate to combat terrorism, serious gaps in their respective threat perceptions and security outlooks impede effective international cooperation. China’s view of the terrorist threat is always directed at Uyghur militants and is even viewed largely as a domestic security problem. China associates terrorism with Uyghur separatism that requires a solid domestic response.11 The Chinese government regards Uyghur separatism as one of the country’s most serious domestic security problems requiring a very strong law enforcement action. The Communist Party of China even describes Xinjiang as the main battleground of its war against terrorism.12 China’s counterterrorism laws are directed at Uyghur separatism in Xinjiang, particularly the one initiated by the ETIM. 13 China regards ETIM to be responsible for much of the terrorist attacks in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR).14 Being a purely domestic threat, China does not allow other countries to interfere. China’s counterterrorism outlook is strongly anchored on the principle of non-interference. Thus, its counterterrorism cooperation approach aims to promote coordination and concerted action and not joint or combined operation with other countries. The Philippines has its threat perception and security outlook on terrorism. In countering terrorism, the Philippines upholds the principle of non-interference in the domestic affairs of other states. Compared with China, the Philippines upholds the security outlook of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) viewing terrorism not only as a domestic security problem but also as “a profound threat to international peace and security and a direct challenge to the attainment of peace, progress, and prosperity for ASEAN.”15 Thus, ASEAN stresses the need “to improve regional cooperation on counterterrorism” by undertaking “effective measures through deepening

11 Tunner, Murray Scot, and Bellacqua, James. (2016). China’s Response to Terrorism. Arlington, VA: CAN Analysis and Solutions. 12 Tunner, Murray Scot, and Bellacqua, James. (2016). China’s Response to Terrorism, p. 42. 13 “Counterterrorism Law of the People’s Republic of China.” (2015). Beijing: National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China. 14 Bureau of Counterterrorism. (2018). Country Reports on Terrorism 2017. Washington DC: United States Department of State Publication, p. 51. 15 ASEAN Convention on Counterterrorism. January 13, 2007.

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cooperation among ASEAN law enforcement agencies and relevant authorities in countering terrorism.”16 The Philippines is therefore open to joint military actions and combined law enforcement operations with other ASEAN countries in countering terrorism in Southeast Asia.

Ideological and legal orientations for counterterrorism

Different ideological and legal orientations for counterterrorism limit meaningful cooperation between China and the Philippines. China’s communist ideology frames the problem of terrorism different from its Southeast Asian counterparts. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been telling the Chinese people and the international community that it is waging its own “war on terrorism” that is focused on countering Uyghur separatism and extremism. 17 This involves the restriction of religious practices that is undesirable in Southeast Asia. China pursues counterterrorism cooperation with ASEAN and AMS because of CPP’s Uyghur problem. Communist ideology also creates a legal system that is uncommon in present-day Southeast Asia, except in Vietnam. Most Southeast Asian countries are undergoing a democratization process that is different from China. This democratization process, though admittedly not a uniform occurrence in the region, has created a regional legal regime for counterterrorism that is now enshrined in the 2007 ASEAN Convention on Counterterrorism. China has its counterterrorism law that is harsh as it tightens political and social control of Muslim Uyghurs as a preventive measure against terrorism.18 This draconian measure is something that is discouraged by ASEAN. As a result, China’s counterterrorism cooperation with the Philippines and other ASEAN countries is currently limited more on the sharing of state practices and domestic accomplishments. Because China and the Philippines are paying attention to their respective domestic sensitivities, no new cooperation is taking place on counterterrorism other than

16 ASEAN Convention on Counterterrorism. January 13, 2007. 17 “China’s War on Terrorism and the Xinjiang Emergency.” Washington DC: Hudson Institute. Septeber 5, 2018. 18 Murphy, Dawn. (2017). “China’s Approach to International Terrorism.” United States Institute of Peace Peace Brief, no. 235, p. 3.

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those already existing under the law enforcement cooperation against transnational crimes, especially under the mandate of the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL).

Institutional and bureaucratic arrangements for counterterrorism

China and the Philippines have their unique organization for counterterrorism. Institutions in charge of counterterrorism in China and the Philippines are varied. Their bureaucracies for counterterrorism are arranged according to their respective domestic political structures, needs, and outlook. In China, many government institutions like law enforcement, intelligence, paramilitary, military, and non-traditional security organs have overlapping roles in counterterrorism.19 But President Xi Jinping controls all these institutions as the Chairman of the powerful National Security Commission (NSC).20 When it comes to internal security and combating domestic terrorism, Xi tends to micromanage the country. During his first meeting at the NSC on 15 April 2014, Xi strongly declared to “build a national security system which is centralized, integrated, highly efficient, and authoritative, to improve leadership over the work of national security.”21 In 2015, China released its National Security Law mandating the adoption of a National Security Strategy with strong provisions on counterterrorism. Based on its National Security Strategy, China also adopts a counterterrorism law in 2015 that incorporates the country’s National Counter Terrorism Strategy into the National Security Strategy. Apparently, is the super organ of the Chinese government in charge of the overall counterterrorism decision making. But the implementation of China’s counterterrorism sremains under the National Counterterrorism Leading Small Group (NCTLSG), a national-level inter-agency organization for counterterrorism created immediately after 9/11.22 The NCTLSG

19 Tunner and Bellacqua. China’s Response to Terrorism, p. 57. 20 Tunner and Bellacqua. China’s Response to Terrorism, p. 57. 21 Xi Jingping. Speech delivered at the First Meeting of the National Security Commission, April 15, 2014. 22 Tunner and Bellacqua. China’s Response to Terrorism, p. 59.

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is composed of at least 16 ministries led by the following ministries as highly influential statutory members: Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of State Security, People’s Armed Police, and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The NSTLSG also provides seats to the following ministries and government agencies: Ministry of Finance, State Religious Affairs Bureau, Border Management Bureau (under joint PLA/MPS leadership), Customs General Administration, Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Transportation, Ministry of Civil Affairs, and Ministry of Public Health. 23 But on top of these ministries and agencies is the NSC. The Philippines has the Anti-Terrorism Council (ATC) as the main inter-agency body of the national government in charge of policy-making for counterterrorism that is chaired by a civilian Executive Secretary who directly reports to the President. The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police (PNP) have their counterterrorism units and Special Forces for counterterrorism operations. The AFP and PNP have “joint campaign plans” for counterterrorism operations.

Conclusion

Despite their continuing territorial disputes in the South China Sea, the Philippines and China decide to cooperate in countering terrorism because of their mutual security interests in this field. Both countries share common security threats from international terrorism that both countries desire to surmount. The principles of reciprocity and reputation motivate both countries to pursue and sustain counterterrorism cooperation. Since the liberation of Marawi, the Philippines and China have been implementing various projects on counterterrorism. Both countries law enforcement authorities are collaborating in the area of information exchange and capacity building. China is currently assisting the Philippines in the rehabilitation of Marawi. However, there are still challenges in counterterrorism cooperation between the two countries. But sustaining their friendship and enhancing their cooperation will enable both countries to overcome these challenges.

23 Tunner and Bellacqua. China’s Response to Terrorism, p. 59.

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