The Philippines-US Visiting Forces Agreement and small power foreign policy (original) (raw)
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NDCP Executive Policy Brief, 2017
This paper aims to discuss how the Philippines-Japan Strategic Partnership strengthens Manila’s maritime security posture in the SCS. In particular, this article seeks to address the following questions: (1) What is a strategic partnership?; (2) Why is there a strategic imperative for the Philippines and Japan to forge such a partnership?; and (3) How does the PJSPD bolster Manila’s maritime capabilities? Using the strategic partnership framework developed by Thomas Wilkins, this paper argues that Manila and Tokyo forged a strategic partnership largely because of their shared concern over the uncertainty in the regional security environment caused by China’s rise, as manifested by its increasing assertiveness in the SCS. In this context, the Philippines-Japan Strategic Partnership’s objective of promoting peace and stability in the SCS is operationalized by strengthening Manila’s maritime security posture through: 1) enhancing maritime domain awareness; 2) conducting bilateral capacity-building initiatives; and 3) coordinating measures in managing tensions at the multilateral level. http://www.ndcp.edu.ph/wp-content/uploads/publications/3.%20EPB%20re%20PH-Japan\_v11.pdf
Michael Magcamit, 2019
In the contemporary Asia-Pacific context, the fault lines leading to the Thucydides trap can be attributed to the continuing strategic competition between a seemingly declining United States and a rising China. Failure to circumvent this trap can ultimately result in a war of all against all. Against this backdrop, this article investigates how a small power re-evaluates its foreign policy and strategic behaviour using neoclassical realism theory. In particular, I examine President Rodrigo Duterte’s method which is characterized by four key elements: cultivating a more favourable image for China; moderating the country’s American-influenced strategic culture; mobilizing state-society relations supportive of ‘Sinicization’; and reorienting the country’s Western-based institutions to better accommodate Chinese pressures and incentives. Does a China-centric approach give a small power an indispensable strategic capital to successfully navigate and exploit both the challenges and opportunities of the impending new order? Do the Philippines’ shifting rules of engagement under the Duterte administration represent a forward-thinking strategic outlook rather than a defeatist and na ̈ıve stance? The article answers these questions by examining the factors and dynamics underpinning the conception and construction of the Duterte method, as well as its implications vis-a-vis a small power’s foreign policy and strategic behaviour.
In his much-acclaimed historical account of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides concluded that it was the rise of Athens and the fear that this event inspired in Sparta that made war inevitable. The probability of conflict ensuing between the emerging and established powers has been referred to by war scholars as the ‘Thucydides’ trap’. In the contemporary Asia-Pacific context, the fault lines leading to this trap can be attributed to the continuing strategic competition between a seemingly declining United States and a rising China. Failure to circumvent this trap can ultimately result in a ‘war of all against all, as the world tumultuously shifts from one superpower to another.’ Against this backdrop, this paper examines President Rodrigo Duterte’s foreign policy and strategic doctrine using a neoclassical realist model. The doctrine has four main elements: cultivating a more favorable image for China; moderating the country’s American-influenced strategic culture; mobilizing state-society relations supportive of ‘sinicization’; and overhauling the country’s Western-based institutions to better accommodate Chinese pressures and incentives. At this watershed moment in the history of international politics, does Duterte’s China-centric approach give the Philippines an indispensable strategic capital to successfully navigate and exploit both the challenges and opportunities of the impending new order? Do the president’s differing rules of engagement toward Beijing and Washington reveal a calculated and forward-thinking strategic outlook rather than a defeatist and naïve stance? The paper answers these questions by examining the factors and dynamics underpinning the creation and implementation of the Duterte doctrine.
This paper seeks to discuss how the Philippine-Japan Strategic Partnership, as a form of security cooperation, complements efforts in promoting peace and stability in the South China Sea (SCS).Although enjoying good ties since the normalization of diplomatic relations in 1956, the Philippines and Japan elevated their bilateral relationship to a higher level of cooperation when they issued Philippine-Japan Strategic Partnership Declaration (PJSPD) in 2011. Four years later, Manila and Tokyo announced that their relations have " entered the state of Strengthened Strategic Partnership. " The strategic partnership between the two US allies is forged against the milieu of an increasingly complex and uncertain security landscape driven largely by an emerging power shift in the region, as manifested in the tensions surrounding maritime and territorial disputes in, among others, the SCS. Against this backdrop this article seeks to address the following questions: 1) What is a strategic partnership?; 2) Why is there a strategic imperative for the Philippines and Japan to forge a strategic partnership?; and 3) How can Manila and Tokyo foster peace and stability in the SCS through the implementation of the PJSPD? Using the strategic partnership framework developed Thomas Wilkins, this paper argues that the Philippine-Japan Strategic Partnership's objective of promoting peace and stability in the SCS is operationalized through the: 1) enhancement of maritime domain awareness; 2) bilateral capacity building initiatives; and 3) coordination of measures in managing the dispute at the multilateral level.
NDCP Executive Policy Brief, 2018
The aim of this policy brief is to discuss how the National Security Strategy (NSS) seeks to promote Philippine national security interests in the South China Sea (SCS). In particular, this paper seeks to answer the following questions: 1) How does the NSS perceive the regional security environment of the Indo-Asia-Pacific particularly, with respect to the SCS?; 2) How does the NSS articulate Philippine national security interests in the SCS and what are the identified courses of action to pursue such interests?; and 3) What are the challenges in promoting Philippine interests in the SCS?
This study aimed to examine the possible strategic partnership of the Philippines and Japan in managing the assertive Chinese hegemony in the East Asia. It also delved into the circumstances and the instances that will possibly give to the establishment of Manila–Tokyo alliance in order to form a shared interests that will counter China‘s dominance. The paper focused on regional partnership tackling political, economic, security and defense issues in the Maritime Asia. It included circumstances of a Manila-Tokyo alliance, on how it could be formed by peering through the historical records of the already pre-existing diplomacy among the two nations with their corresponding implications. The researchers utilized the descriptive-historical approach, qualitative method, and interviews in gathering data. The study found that there is a historical basis of strategic partnership between Japan and the Philippines. Numerous treaties and agreements have given way to establish the so called strategic partnership through economic cooperation, delivery of Official Development Assistance, and trade. The strategic partnership does not only revolve around military but also emphasized the economic, social, diplomatic, and political aspects to solidify it in countering Chinese hegemony in the region effectively. The researchers concluded that the strategic partnership countered Chinese hegemony in terms of economic, defense and security and diplomacy and politics. More notably, the researchers were able to justify the formation of an alliances with Japan. The paper recommends that the situation in South China Sea must not be taken for granted.
East Asia: An International Quarterly, 2018
This article examines the link between the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the Duterte Administration’s appeasement policy on China. Relative to the South China Sea dispute, China uses the BRI as a means to ease and stabilize its strained relations with claimant countries like the Philippines. The BRI has enabled China to influence the Philippines in changing its policy on Chinese maritime expansion in the South China Sea. Lured by the BRI, President Rodrigo Roa Duterte is undoing his predecessor’s policy of balancing China’s expansive claim in the disputed waters. Based on his calculation, the Philippines will benefit from the BRI initiative—particularly in the revival of the maritime silk route—as it dovetails with his administration’s massive infrastructure build-up program. In conclusion, the article contends that President Duterte is convinced that his appeasement policy toward China is worth pursuing because it makes the Philippines a beneficiary of the BRI. However, 3 years into his term, he has yet to see the implementation of BRI-funded infrastructure projects, which have been delayed by technical problems, the Philippine military, and the Filipino people’s distrust of China because of the South China Sea issue in particular, and its behavior as emergent power in East Asia in general.
Anthropology of Security The Case of the West Philippine Sea 2011-
2017
Based on the objectives of this ethnography, the pursuit of this study wants to contribute to a better understanding of the Philippines strategic culture in its continuing battle to protect its territorial integrity and national sovereignty in the West Philippine Sea. The research has looked at the plausible approaches in contributing to the epistemic literature of the anthropology of security by examining the country’s strategic culture in the West Philippine Sea, identifying themes on the Philippines strategic culture in its imminent external security threat, and to recommend projected Philippines responses to advance the country’s strategic culture. Based on the findings of the ethnography, China has already risen economically, militarily and politically. The pronounced power shift in the West Philippine Sea, two superpowers, one emerging (China) while the other declining (United States), are tossing coins with each other as they flex military muscles in the new-found maritime battleground at the expense of smaller nation like the Philippines, ascribing and still trying to identify and institutionalize its own strategic culture. In-depth analyses and rhetoric sandwiched in this ethnographic account identified legal remedies, diplomatic negotiations, and military alliance as part of building the capacity to foster the country’s robust strategic culture. It is obvious that although the country manifests strategic culture, it is still episodic and not well-defined or long-term, although it is not lacking as accounted in the oral traditions of Philippine strategic culture, but it only needs to be codified, defined, and institutionalized to empower its existence and robustness. This is perhaps the silverlining in the West Philippine Sea crisis that has jolted the Philippine defense establishment out of stupor.
Line in the Waters: The South China Sea Dispute and its Implications for Asia
This compilation looks at emerging security dynamics in the Southeast Asian littorals and its impact on Asian geopolitics and security. It presents country perspectives of the strategic implications of recent developments in the South China Sea -- their implications for maritime security and the regional balance of power. After a Arbitral Tribunal pronounced a verdict in July 2016, invalidating China's historical claims in the South China Sea, there is fear that the dispute might turn into a flashpoint for conflict. Beyond dwelling on the strategic deadlock that characterizes the current state-of-play, contributors outline possible solutions and a way forward.
Explaining the Duterte Administration's Appeasement Policy on China: The Power of Fear
Asian Affairs: An American Review, 2019
This article examines the reason behind the dramatic shift in Philippine foreign policy under the Duterte Administration. His predecessor, president Benigno Aquino, vigorously challenged China’s expansive territorial claim in the South China Sea throughout his six-year term. However, president Rodrigo Duterte’s actions and pronouncements are undoing the former president’s geopolitical agenda of balancing China’s expansion in the disputed waters. He distances the Philippines from the United States, its long-standing treaty ally, and gravitates toward China. This stance aims to earn goodwill with China so that the Philippines can avail itself of enormous aids and loans from China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This stemmed from this administration’s fear that the Philippines would not benefit from China’s emergence as an economic power. Nevertheless, by appeasing an expansionist power, the Philippines becomes complicit to China’s long-term strategy of maritime expansion to push the United States out of East Asia. In conclusion, the article warns that the Duterte Administration might end up losing the country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the South China Sea and the confidence and trust of its allies and security partners. This administration might also leave the public coffers empty and dry because of China’s reneging on its commitment to fund the Philippines’ massive infrastructure-building program, labeled “Build, Build, and Build.”