[The stepped-up American access to the
Philippines, negotiated by the Pentagon under the previous government of
Benigno S. Aquino III, was considered a mainstay of the Obama administration’s
“pivot” to Asia strategy that China has blasted as a containment policy, and
that it would like to unravel.]
By Jane Perlez
 |
|
President Rodrigo Duterte
of the Philippines at a celebration for the country’s
coast guard in Manila
last week. Credit Damir Sagolj/Reuters
|
BEIJING
— President Rodrigo Duterte
of the Philippines, one of America’s closest allies in Asia, has said he wants
to reduce American military influence in his country and build closer ties with
China.
But he has stopped short of offering to do
what China would like most: scrapping an accord that gives the United States
access to five military bases in the Philippines.
How far he is willing to go will be tested
this week when he arrives in China on Tuesday for talks that are likely to
produce signals of whether he wants to become a close friend of Beijing.
“If China succeeds in peeling the Philippines
away from the United States, it will be a major win in Beijing’s long-term
campaign to weaken U.S. alliances in the region,” said Andrew Shearer, a senior
adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
“It will feed fears that the right mix of intimidation and inducements could
influence other partners to distance themselves from Washington.”
Mr. Duterte has expressed doubts about
whether the United States would come to the aid of the Philippines in a
military showdown, and on the eve of his departure for Beijing he said he would
be looking to buy Chinese weapons in his fight against terrorism.
The stepped-up American access to the
Philippines, negotiated by the Pentagon under the previous government of
Benigno S. Aquino III, was considered a mainstay of the Obama administration’s
“pivot” to Asia strategy that China has blasted as a containment policy, and
that it would like to unravel.
Thailand, another American ally in Southeast
Asia, has also increasingly turned toward China, raising the prospect that
Washington faces frayed ties with two of its longstanding partners in the
region.
How well China succeeds with Mr. Duterte will
send signals throughout the region, where robust economic relationships with
China are vital for most countries even as they fear its growing military clout
— and its push for control of the South China Sea.
“China will be very watchful about how far
Duterte wants to go,” said Zhu Feng, executive director of the Collaborative
Innovation Center of South China Sea Studies at Nanjing University. “His pledge
to distance from the United States, of course it’s very positive for China.”
In particular, Mr. Zhu said, China would like
the Philippines to stop American use of an air base at Palawan, an island about
100 miles from the disputed Spratly Islands, where China has built three
military bases.
The Palawan base significantly enhances the
ability of American forces to project power into the disputed South China Sea,
and anything that jeopardized that access would complicate United States
military planning.
As China probes Mr. Duterte for strategic
concessions, the new leader has his own shopping list for economic help from
Beijing. In an interview with the state-run Chinese news agency Xinhua,
released on Monday, he criticized the United States for being stingy, saying
“only China can help us.”
He has said he wants the Chinese to construct
a railway in his home province of Mindanao, and from the capital, Manila, to
Mindanao. A Chinese businessman has financed a huge drug rehabilitation center
scheduled to open next month, a project that Mr. Duterte praised as a symbol of
Chinese friendship.
A large contingent of Philippine businessmen
accompanying Mr. Duterte is expecting the Chinese to lift bans on more than two
dozen fruits, imposed by Beijing four years ago in retaliation against the
former government for its stance on the South China Sea.
Mr. Duterte will be accorded a full state
visit, and is scheduled to meet with the Chinese leader, President Xi Jinping,
on Thursday at the Great Hall of the People. He is also expected to meet with
Zhang Dejiang, the chairman of the standing committee of the National People’s
Congress, and to visit the Great Wall and perhaps the Palace Museum in central
Beijing, Chinese officials said.
How smoothly the talks proceed may depend on
how well the two leaders, the rough-talking and ad hoc Mr. Duterte, 71, and the
tightly scripted Mr. Jinping, 63, get along.
Mr. Xi rose through the ranks of the
secretive enclaves of the Communist Party; Mr. Duterte served as mayor of
Davao, one of the Philippines’ most crime-ridden cities, for 22 years.
The Philippine leader has presided over a
bloody campaign against drugs that has used extrajudicial killings; Mr. Xi has
led a sustained crackdown on corruption, and agreed to the detention of
hundreds of lawyers, and forced confessions from some of them.
Early on, Mr. Duterte showed his desire to
improve relations with China by appointing Santiago Sta. Romana, a former
bureau chief for the American ABC television network in Beijing, as his new
ambassador to Beijing.
Mr. Romana, 68, commonly known as Chito,
lived in Beijing from 1971 until his retirement from ABC in 2010. On his return
to Manila, he called for a more nuanced approach to China as head of the
Philippine Association of Chinese Studies.
“The Philippines is shifting from a very
close and tight alignment with the United States that made it seem we were part
of the anti-China coalition,” Mr. Romana said in an interview. “The pendulum
may swing toward China. The alliance with the U.S. will stay. Relations with
China were frozen from 2013, but now we will resume all types of dialogue.”
One of the toughest parts of the discussion
between Mr. Duterte and the Chinese leadership is likely to be over Scarborough
Shoal, a disputed reef in the South China Sea that China seized from the
Philippines in 2012.
In reaction to that takeover, the Philippines
initiated a case before an international tribunal in The Hague. In July, the
tribunal ruled overwhelmingly in favor of the Philippines, declaring China’s
fishing and reclamation activities around the disputed reef to be illegal.
China has denounced the decision and vowed to
ignore it. In contrast, the tribunal ruling seems to be one issue on which Mr.
Duterte is consistent: He has said the Philippines will abide by it.
A Chinese expert on the South China Sea, Wu
Shicun, the head of the National Institute for South China Sea Studies, said in
an interview that he could envision a “package” deal that would include a
precondition that the Philippines recognize Chinese sovereignty over
Scarborough Shoal, 150 miles west of the Philippine coast. In return for that,
Philippine and Chinese fishermen could operate in the waters around Scarborough
Shoal, but not inside the vast lagoon of the shoal because of environmental
damage from overfishing in those waters, he said.
In its ruling, the tribunal said that both
Philippine and Chinese fishermen had traditional fishing rights at the shoal,
and that China had interfered with those rights by blocking access for the
Philippine fishermen.
The notion of the Philippines granting China
sovereignty over Scarborough Shoal may be a step too far for Mr. Duterte: He
has said that it belongs to the Philippines, and that he would even drive a Jet
Ski to plant the national flag there.
Left unsaid by Mr. Wu was China’s ambition to
start reclamation work at Scarborough Shoal and transform it into a military
platform.
Such construction by China had been expected
in the wake of the tribunal’s decision. But that plan appears to have been
postponed by the election of Mr. Duterte.
As much as China welcomes the new Philippine
leader as a fresh face, he may not be an easy customer on all fronts, said
Renato Cruz De Castro, a fellow at the East-West Center in Washington, and an
expert on China and the Philippines.
China would meddle with Mr. Duterte’s ties to
the United States by extending generous economic inducements and offering a
deal on the South China Sea, he said. But on one important item, Mr. Duterte
would almost certainly prove an obstacle.
“Duterte is putting China on the spot,” Dr.
De Castro said. “If they do military construction at Scarborough Shoal, that
would drive Mr. Duterte back to the United States.”
Follow Jane Perlez on Twitter @JanePerlez.
Yufan Huang contributed research from
Beijing.