Philippines

The following article by Modesto P. Sa-onoy appeared in the Daily Guardian on August 21st 2018.

A RECENT report by the Pentagon says that China is “likely training for strikes against the United States and its allies” but China debunked this report as “pure guesswork”.

As the late US President John Kennedy said in his inaugural address in 1963, “sincerity is subject to proof”. And proof is in what one sees or hears from credible sources. Studies can be guesswork if seen from the eyes of the suspect, as China is in this case. Surely we cannot expect China to admit it is conducting training exercises for a military strike.

In 1927, a study by the US military strategists claimed a possible conflict in the Pacific. There were two countries with the possible intent of striking – the Russia and Japan. The US preparations for a likelihood of war with Japan was code-named War Plan 5 with an orange ribbon covering, thus the plan became popularly known as WP Orange. The study projected possible hostilities within 10 years. Well, as we know the

Japanese struck in 1941 although it already began invasion in China in 1938; the Americans considered that as a “training” exercise.

Indeed, Martin Jacques in his book, When China Rules the World (2009) considered the Chinese capable of becoming the dominant military force in Asia after it has gained a phenomenal economic growth. He asked,

“How will the impact of China’s economic rise be felt and perceived in ten years’ time? How will China behave twenty years hence when it has established itself as second only to the United States and effectively dominate East Asia? Will China continue to operate within the terms of the established international system…?”

We know that China has already refused to accept the jurisdiction of the International Tribunal in the issue of the West Philippine Sea. The tribunal said the islands belong to the Philippines; instead China defied the tribunal by constructing military installations there with capabilities for a bombing strike against the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. Despite our complaints, China continued its constructions at the same time befriending the Philippine government and courting it with offers of financial aid that have not materialized. China nurtured the anti-American sentiment of President Duterte and it got its way.

The Philippine government, small and putty at China’s hands, can only complain a situation that the Philippines created for itself because it has no more powerful friends to come by its side. Worse the Philippine is courting Russia, China’s ideological ally and too far away to help us. The US has issued a warning of the risks of this shift but the Philippine government refuses to listen. Historically, we might be a rehearsal for military conflict due to Chinese incursions.

Jacques likened the situation in 2009 with those years prior to WW II. “International relations experts are fond of citing the rise of Germany and Japan in the early twentieth century as examples of nations whose new-found powers could not be contained within the existing international system and whose ambitions eventually culminated in war. The rise of China will not necessarily result in military conflict -and for the sake of humanity, we must fervently hope it does not – but it is a sobering thought that the ramifications of China’s rise for the world will be incomparably greater than those of Germany and Japan, even accounting for the differences in historical times.”

The United States is a deterrent to China’s ambition for an East Asian hegemony with it as the dominant power, a realization of its belief as the center of the Universe.

Comparatively, the US has more fixed-wing aircraft, surface combatant ships and submarines and can draw allied forces from its allies (Japan, Taiwan and South Korea). The US can no longer depend on us.

The US has more nuclear weapons but the Pentagon says China is building fast with nuclear missiles striking capabilities against the US mainland and its military facilities including those of US allies. To the Pentagon these are dangerous developments.

Jacques quoted the warning of the Chief of Malayan navy: there exist uncertainties in the form of China’s behavior once she attained her great power status.

Modesto P. Sa-onoy

This article, by Modesto P. Sa-Onoy, was published in the Daily Guardian, 16th May 2018

CHINA has reportedly installed facilities for a missile strike in the Philippine’s side of the disputed South China Sea. The Philippine Navy estimates that the facilities can be operational in three months. Pro-Chinese Filipino officials claim that the missiles are not pointed at the Philippines as if the missile launching pads are stuck to one direction. The Philippine Navy said they have interceptors, but how many? Are they enough to prevent missiles from devastating the country?

For years China has set its eyes on the Philippine Sea that had been proven in the international court to be Philippine territory but China refuses to accept that decision and uses its military might to bully the Philippines from enforcing its rights.

Now it is using its economic clout to entice the Philippines not to outright demand the removal of its missiles but to just keep on making statements against them. In return it has befriended President Duterte with offers of economic aid, loans and investments. But as one commentator warned, “don’t trust China with those financial offers.” But Duterte wants to be close to China as a counter-balance to the US that he accuses of unfriendly acts for the US criticisms of Duterte’s human rights record.

China needs to expand to survive and the Philippines is an easy target – close, weak and “friendly”. Martin Jacques whose 2009 book, “When China Rules the World” I had quoted before, has a grim assessment of China’s rapid development that bears on this subject of expansionism.

“China is increasingly dependent on the rest of the world for the huge quantities of raw materials that it needs for its economic growth. It is already the world’s largest buyer of copper, the second biggest buyer of iron ore, the third largest buyer of alumina. It absorbs close to a third of global supply of coal, steel and cotton, and almost half of its cement. It is the second largest energy consumer after the US, with nearly 70 per cent produced from burning coal. In 2005, China used more coal than the US, India and Russian combined. In 2004 it accounted for nearly 40 per cent of the increase in the world demand for oil. If the Chinese was to continue to expand at 8 per cent a year in the future, its income per head would reach the current US level in 2031, at which it would consume the equivalent of two-thirds of current world grain harvest and its demand for paper would double the world’s current production. If it were to enjoy the same level of per capita car ownership as the US does today,  it would have 1.1 billion cars compared with the worldwide total of 800 million; and it would use 99 million barrels of oil a day compared with a worldwide total of production of 84 million barrels per day in 2006. Of course, such a level of demand would be unsustainable in terms of the world’s available resources, not to mention its global environmental impact, which is dire.”

These are not just estimates but projections and we are already feeling the impact of China’s needs. The Western countries were able to expand their economies without harming or exhausting their natural resources because they had colonies to provide the raw materials and absorb their outputs. Japan had the same idea at the turn of the 20^th century and embarked on expansionism in 1936 with its slogan, “East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”, its euphemism for Japanese colonies like the Philippines.

Martin’s book was published nine years ago and we are now seeing the movement of China to expand and secure a new kind of colonies, dissimilar to the concept and methods as the Western colonizers but colonization nevertheless.

A few years ago a report said that China wanted to lease one million hectares in the Philippines that it will cultivate for food production. That is not for local consumption but to help feed the billions of Chinese. Although China has large tracts of land not all are suitable for agriculture and their water source for agriculture is limited. It must expand.

A report said that real estate prices in the Philippines are rising fast; one reason is that Chinese investors are buying land. Caveat emptor is still an excellent policy.

Modesto P. Sa-Onoy

Carmen N Pedrosa

We are ecstatic that the Filipino crowd has finally found its strength and the way to express it. For the moment Duterte supporters are full of hope that Rodrigo Roa Duterte, an obscure mayor from Mindanao is the answer. He has come forward with his program and he has a party to implement it – the PDP Laban. He is serious about constitutional change that will transform the Philippines into a parliamentary system with a federal structure. He will have many enemies but he will also have friends and a multitude of supporters to carry out the difficult task.

I don’t think he needs to be told about the treachery of evil. He has lived with it when he was mayor of Davao. But caveat emptor (avoid danger) the famous Latin quotation is relevant to him as well as to us. Evil is a constant in reality. The danger is to think that it can be destroyed with a magic wand. No matter how much he may wish it, it will not happen overnight. Nation building is a slow process of creating effective institutions that should last long after he is gone. And most of all he must keep in mind that as leader of the Filipino crowds that waited for him to remember always that he must not make “the perfect come in the way of the good.” That I believe is the temptation for a man with a heroic bent like Duterte. He wants to do good, he lives humbly and speaks in the language the masses understand. Never mind the critics who tell him that he needs to speak with the Arrneow accent.

His role in history is to begin the process of change. We were subjected to an imperialist constitution from the Americans in favor of a presidential system. That ensured the rule of oligarchy as its new channel to imperialist rule. The all powerful Philippine President would act like the all powerful American governor general.

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When the leaders of the member-states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) gather this weekend in Kuala Lumpur, their agenda will be dominated by the launch of the 10-year roadmap toward the realization of the Asean Community. But, apart from regional economic integration, President Aquino has other things in mind. The Asean summit offers him another opportunity to bring up the issue of China’s aggressive moves in the South China Sea. Hopefully, he will get his colleagues to conclude the protracted discussion of a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea as a concrete achievement in political and security cooperation.

This was an issue he first sharply brought to the Asean table at the 20th Asean summit in 2012 in Phnom Penh. For the first time in its history, the consensus-oriented regional bloc failed to issue a joint communiqué at the end of its meeting after the host country decided to take up the cudgels for China. This was a moment when semantics could not come to the aid of diplomacy.

That Cambodian summit conveyed in no uncertain terms P-Noy’s determination to hold China accountable for its actions under international norms. His dogged pursuit of the South China Sea issue at that meeting, which he did in the politest terms possible, deviated from the customary practice of issuing muffled official protests while signaling a readiness to settle disputes through bilateral talks. It was a sharp departure from the policy that had characterized his predecessor’s cozy relationship with China. Not too long after the Cambodian encounter, the Philippines filed an arbitration case against China under the terms of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos).

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With the inevitable rise of China as no. 1 in the world economy it is important that we re-examine our foreign policy about it. I find it useful to quote once again from a talk by Martin Jacques, a British author who came to Manila in November 2012. He predicted that in a decade, China would surpass the American economy.

Well, with the news that it is now no.1 according to IMF figures, it has come sooner than expected. Jacques’ talk then was about findings that he put together in a book that became a world best seller “When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order.” It was published in 2009 and it has continued to enjoy a wide readership. It has since sold over a quarter of a million copies and translated into 11 languages.

Jacques also has a blog where his lectures are posted.  I was able to talk to him while in London recently and his position about China’s rise was unchanged.  In his talk in Manila, he was keen to impart to Filipinos that we ought to be ready for the Chinese economic supremacy. The author had the credentials to deal with both Eastern and Western culture and developments.

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President B. S. Aquino III apparently thought he and US President Barack Obama would be playing China together.  Obama said however that they’re not playing China right now, but that the US would defend the Philippines if attacked. This had some political pundits confused.  What exactly did Obama mean?

“The US has no plan to contain China.”  China is now the world’s largest trading nation, according to the latest statistics, and is outspending almost every other country on defense outside of the US. Many China-watchers  seem to believe China will soon rule the world—one global bestseller by Martin Jacques is entitled, “When China Rules the World. ” But  Obama did not come to Asia to embrace that position.

He obviously has a soft spot for B. S. III.  But he has seen how unmusical the guy is on any serious question.  Even when the guy appears headed in the right direction, he self-destructs as soon as he “vocalizes” his position.  Obama could not afford to let this loose cannon, this Philippine version of Kim Jong-un,  mess up things for Washington. He had to restrain his poodle.  It is within this context that one must read Obama’s statement.

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There are only two real adversaries in the conflict in the South China Sea — the US and China. All the rest are supporting cast (including the Philippines) with subplots of their own. At the center of the conflict is the superpower race that even the protagonists themselves hesitate to admit. All manner of prevarications are used to obscure that single issue.

Martin Jacques, the author of When China Rules the World, who was here in Manila, summed it up thus. “There has been an extraordinary and irreversible shift of power from the West in general and the United States, in particular, to China.

But neither the American nor the Chinese government has admitted to this shift of power. On the surface at least it has been business as usual.

This is an illusion but a forgivable one nonetheless. There is a strong imperative for the two countries to continue with their preset modus vivendi; a shift in the tectonic plates is bound to complicate this. Signs of growing difficulty were already evident from around autumn 2009.”

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LONDON —  I like being in this city because I am able to read articles with different points of view on an issue that matters: China as a rising power in Asia.

China experts who have written books recently are David Shambaugh, “China Goes Global: the Partial Power,” Edward N. Luttwak, The Rise of China vs. the Logic of Strategy, and Timothy Beardson’sStumbling Giant: the Threats to China’s Future.

These books can be said to be a reaction to Martin Jacques, the author of the international bestseller, “When China Rules the World.” Since I am in London, I asked Martin Jacques what he thought of the article that reviewed the three books in Prospect Magazine. I ask him to comment specifically on a question posed by the author, Jonathan Mirsky.

“What should we do about a regime that prides itself on a mythical past on the continuing assumption that all other countries are its cultural inferiors?”

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THE landmark summit between US President Barack Obama and China’s President Xi Jinping may well be described as “a qualified success” because it went smoothly on friendly terms, not an insignificant feat considering the number of simmering issues that divided their two countries.

This was the collective view of most China watchers and analysts who discussed the results of the first face-to-face meeting of the two leaders in California last June 7 to 8. They noted that Obama and Xi spoke at length about those issues, such as cyber security, North Korea and the rising friction between China and US ally Japan in the East China Sea, but they didn’t discuss China’s territorial disputes with its Southeast Asian neighbors over some islands, islets, shoals in the South China Sea.

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Chinese President Xi Jinping didn’t talk about his dream during the two-day summit with U.S. President Barack Obama last weekend, but China watchers and analysts have tried to unravel its meaning.

China’s President Xi may not have talked about his dream — what he calls the “China Dream”— during his first “face-to-face” talks with U.S. President Obama, but some perceptive China watchers and analysts have written about its meaning and implications for all countries of the world.

President Xi’s dream, in the view of Damian Grammaticos, China correspondent of BBC News, “is to lead a Chinese renaissance so China can resume its rightful place in the world. As one of the most powerful leaders on the planet, “he can, if he wishes, influence the destiny of hundreds of millions of people, inside and outside China. He can shape history. So will he? And if so, how? What does his dream mean?”

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