MANILA - Rising diplomatic tensions with China have sown divisions inside the
Philippine ruling establishment, a widening and potentially destabilizing rift
that has split President Benigno Aquino's administration.
While Aquino has publicly taken a
hard line in response to Beijing's perceived provocations in the South China
Sea, he has privately bid to use back diplomatic channels to maintain crucial
bilateral trade and investment ties.
The domestic infighting comes in
response to strained bilateral relations with China that some fear could break
into open confrontation without a diplomatic course shift. That risk has risen
in the context of America's "pivot" towards Asia and as Aquino makes
strategic overtures towards the United States, including calls for more
military assistance and the provision of spy planes to monitor China's naval
activities in adjacent waters.
After Aquino issued a September 5
administrative order to officially rename the South China Sea the West
Philippine Sea, a move that asserted Manila's sovereignty over contested
maritime areas and potentially legally bound the US to defend those claims through
a mutual defense treaty, Chinese President Hu Jintao refused to meet Aquino on
the sidelines of last month's Asia-Pacific Economic Conference (APEC) summit in
Russia.
Although the president legally
has the final say over Philippine foreign policy, the Department of Foreign
Affairs (DFA) is functionally the main institutional arbiter of external
relations. Owing to the outsized significance of Sino-Filipino relations, DFA's
control over China policy has been steadily undercut by competing interest groups,
including highly influential business corporations with interests in China.
While Aquino has publicly
condemned Chinese aggression, he apparently secretly sanctioned neophyte
Senator Antonio Trillanes to pursue a parallel track of "back door"
diplomacy with Beijing. The gambit was apparently initiated with little or no
consultation with Foreign Secretary Albert Del Rosario - although other sources
say that Del Rosario was in the cabinet meeting while Aquino was talking with
Trillanes on the phone in the loudspeaker mode - and without the permission of
Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile.
The gambit became public, with
some commentators claiming the diplomatically inexperienced Trillanes fell
unwittingly into a Chinese trap. The commentators claimed Beijing exploited the
junior legislator's budding political ambitions by using him to divide the
Philippine leadership, assert greater control over the contested Scarborough
Shoal, and isolate the purportedly pro-US faction within the DFA.
Chinese officials apparently
convinced Trillanes they were willing to withdraw their vessels from the
disputed maritime territory around Scarborough Shoal in exchange for a
reciprocal move by Manila. US senior envoy for East Asian and Pacific Affairs
Kurt Campbell had earlier suggested to both the DFA and China to make a
simultaneous withdrawal to de-escalate tensions and avoid militarization of the
disputed area.
However, Trillanes boasted soon
after in the local press about his role in "easing tensions" and
"avoiding war", bringing the back channel talks into the public eye.
Manila's withdrawal, however, was met by China removing only some of its naval
ships. Beijing has since fortified its position around the shoal with a growing
number of paramilitary and surveillance vessels.
In July, China consolidated its
claim to the area by upgrading the administrative status of the nearby Sansha
island, and demonstrated a willingness to defend the contested outpost through
subsequent naval maneuvers in the vicinity. The Scarborough Shoal area has
since for all practical purposes been off-limits to even Filipino fishermen and
once-probing media.
Critics of the Trillanes-led deal
claim as a result the Philippines has lost whatever measure of control it
previously exercised over the shoal and its surrounding lagoon through its
secretly negotiated withdrawal. They note that China has even refused to honor
an earlier mutually agreed fishing ban to preserve the shoal area's fragile
eco-system.
The fallout has reverberated
through the Philippines' domestic politics, pitting China hawks versus China
doves. For his part, Trillanes is said to have accused Del Rosario of
"treason" for his dealings with the US and antagonism towards China,
charges of treachery the foreign secretary has strongly refuted. As a veteran
diplomat, including as former ambassador to the US, Del Rosario has driven a
revitalization of Philippine-US strategic ties, including through several
hat-in-hand trips to Washington.
In criticizing DFA policy,
Trillanes has claimed that most Filipinos are uninterested in the Scarborough
Shoal issue and would prefer instead to have cordial relations with China.
According to an opinion poll conducted across 77 provinces by Laylo Research
Strategies in August, 69% of Filipinos are concerned about preserving national
sovereignty over the disputed shoal.
The Trillanes camp has also
highlighted Del Rosario's former employment under Manny Pangilinan, chairman of
Philex Petroleum and a potential key player in future exploitation of oil and
gas in disputed South China Sea territories. They have publicly questioned Del
Rosario's "impartiality" in dealing with China, insinuating a
conflict of interest between his public and past private roles.
The war of words and Aquino's
apparent secret diplomacy outside of DFA channels have reportedly prompted Del
Rosario to consider resigning his post in protest. Trillanes has already called
for Manuel Roxas, the newly appointed interior secretary, to replace Del
Rosario should he step down.
Treason all around
On the other side of the
political divide, Senate President Enrile has rushed to Del Rosario's defense.
Enrile has accused Trillanes of not only bypassing normal parliamentary
procedures in pursuit of the "back door" gambit (protocol required notification
of the Senate president), but also of serving as a Chinese "fifth
column".
Citing information provided by
Philippine Ambassador to China Sonya Brady (who recently suffered a stroke and
will soon be replaced), Enrile claimed that Trillanes held talks with top
Chinese officials on at least 16 occasions. Enrile also insinuated Trillanes'
"treason" allegations against Del Rosario, including accusations that
the foreign secretary aimed to create a "war event" to justify
boosting US military ties, were motivated by his Chinese contacts. Enrile
himself has since been accused of treason for revealing confidential diplomatic
notes in an open Senate session.
The antagonistic rhetoric and
intra-government rifts has put Aquino in a tight political spot. In a bid to stem
the political damage, Aquino has asked both Del Rosario and Trillanes to stop
making public statements on the issue. "Senator Trillanes has the best
interest of the country in mind ... I can categorically say the secretary of
foreign affairs enjoys the trust and confidence of the President,"
presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said diplomatically in a recent news
briefing.
Aquino has publicly denied
Trillanes' claim that he was quietly appointed as a special envoy to China,
saying instead he merely responded positively to Trillanes' suggestion to
explore talks and ease tensions with China ahead of a trip he planned to make
to China in May sponsored by Filipino-Chinese business executives. Philippine
industrialists and businessmen have looked to Trillanes to smooth relations
after Beijing imposed obstacles to bilateral trade and travel in the wake of
the Scarborough Shoal stand-off.
In a press interview, Trillanes
said he was approached by the Federation of Filipino Chinese Chambers of
Commerce and Industry to play a mediating role. Lucio Tan, the Filipino-Chinese
owner of Philippine Airlines with business interests in China, even sponsored
his first-class trip to Beijing, Trillanes said in the interview.
The economic stakes of falling
afoul China are huge. China, including Hong Kong, is the Philippines' largest
export destination, accounting for 24% of total exports last year. Mainland
China is the country's third-largest trade partner, with annual bilateral trade
hovering around US$30 billion. Last year, the two countries agreed to expand
their bilateral trade to $60 billion by 2016, which if achieved would transform
mainland China alone into the Philippines' biggest export market.
Leading Filipino entrepreneurs
with interests in China's booming real estate and retail sectors have banked
heavily on their growing foreign investments there. Chinese visitors to the
Philippines, meanwhile, were the fourth largest source of tourist revenues in
2011.
Beijing has also been a growing
source of badly needed foreign direct investment, with China-financed projects
across the Philippines now worth nearly $8 billion. Despite concerns about
corruption and transparency, China is still considered a key source of
concessional loans, primarily in the area of infrastructure development, a core
component of Aquino's economic agenda.
In this light, Aquino's apparent
approval of Trillanes' s back-channel diplomacy was an attempt to balance
competing interests and appease Beijing while not backing away publicly from his
tough rhetoric to defend the country's territorial integrity. In the wake of
last month's APEC snub and the Del Rosario versus Trillanes fiasco, Aquino
tasked interior secretary Roxas to meet on September 21 China's next leader, Xi
Jingping, as a special envoy.
"I conveyed to vice
president Xi [that] talk is better than no talk. So the fact that we are
talking at the highest levels, the fact that messages are reliably conveyed, I
think it's a good foundation," Roxas said in a news briefing after the meeting.
"I think given the situation at least we are talking again with senior
officials of the People's Republic of China, so that's a nice start,"
Aquino added.
The diplomatic niceties have
helped to ease bilateral tensions while China's leadership transition unfolds,
but the pitched struggle between competing factions with divergent views
towards China inside Aquino's administration remains wholly unresolved. As
Aquino attempts to strike a balance between national security concerns and
economic imperatives, the risk of more infighting and policy incoherence is
high.
Richard Javad Heydarian
Business & Investment Opportunities
YourVietnamExpert is a division of Saigon Business Corporation Pte Ltd, Incorporated in Singapore since 1994. As Your Business Companion, we propose a range of services in Strategy, Investment and Management, focusing Healthcare and Life Science with expertise in ASEAN. Since we are currently changing the platform of www.yourvietnamexpert.com, you may contact us at: sbc.pte@gmail.com, provisionally. Many thanks.
No comments:
Post a Comment