These incidents tremendously complicated Duterte's China-friendly approach and made outreach to Washington more appealing.Īt a time of heightened superpower tension in Asia, when top U.S. Then in January this year, China authorized its coast guard to fire upon foreign vessels as needed, and in March it moored more than 200 Chinese fishing boats-many of which were likely maritime militia vessels-at the disputed Whitsun Reef. In 2019 and early 2020, China encircled the Philippines' Thitu Island (also known as Pag-asa) with hundreds of militia boats, apparently to prevent Philippine authorities from upgrading the island's runway and making other infrastructure improvements. To make matters worse, in recent years Beijing has amped up its assertiveness in the South China Sea. Yet now Duterte has less than a year left in office-his single six-year term ends in June 2022, as required by the Philippine Constitution-and none of those dreams has come to fruition.ĭuterte's China-friendly policy is effectively over, and he's doing his best to align the Philippines with the United States again. He hoped, for instance, that he would be able to strike a deal on joint exploration of disputed regions in the South China Sea (known in Manila as the West Philippine Sea) and leverage Beijing's massive infrastructure and investment plan, the Belt and Road Initiative, to support his own “Build! Build! Build!” infrastructure plan.
His warm embrace of China never produced the results he expected.
What caused the change? It's possible that Duterte feels a bit jilted.
#DUTERTE TRENDING NEWS FULL#
Steps include a series of high-level visits the restoration of wide-ranging defense agreements Manila's full endorsement of the AUKUS security pact joining Australia, Britain, and the United States the reestablishment of the Philippines–United States Bilateral Strategic Dialogue and expanded joint military exercises next year. In recent months, Manila has moved to fully reinstate security ties and rebuild trust with Washington in a vigorous attempt to deter Beijing. Now, just as easily as he flipped one way, he's flopping the other: His China-friendly policy is effectively over, and he's doing his best to align the Philippines with the United States again. But consistency and principle were never Duterte's strong suits. On his first trip to Beijing that year, Duterte tried to butter up his hosts by proclaiming that it was “time to say goodbye to Washington.” Other actions and outbursts intended to curry favor with China and loosen ties to the United States followed.
When Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte took office in 2016, he pledged to shift his country's foreign policy away from the United States-a longstanding treaty ally-in favor of China and Russia.
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