The FOIP strategy is the encapsulation of US security interests as a status-quo power in the Indo-Pacific region. ‘Free’ pertains to the freedom of sovereign nations from coercion, while ‘open’ refers to open sea lines of communication and airways.
A crucial aspect of the FOIP is that it seeks to challenge China’s behaviour in the SCS. Speaking at the 2018 Shangri-La Dialogue, Secretary Mattis underscored that Beijing’s militarisation of artificial features in the SCS — including the deployment of surface-to-air and anti-ship cruise missiles, installation of electronic jammers and test-landing of a nuclear-capable bomber — runs in stark contrast to the policy of openness that the FOIP promotes.
The FOIP presents an opportunity for the Philippines to be part of a loose coalition of states that are willing and able to counter unilateral Chinese behaviour in the SCS and to preserve the rules-based regional order. As outlined in the 2018 US National Defense Strategy, the United States seeks to transform its system of alliances and security partnerships in the Indo-Pacific into a ‘networked security architecture capable of deterring aggression, maintaining stability, and ensuring free access to common domains’.
US allies and security partners have started to orient their policies towards these objectives. Japan has adopted a FOIP strategy that seeks to connect the SCS and the Indian Ocean and to ‘enhance strategic collaboration’ with India, Australia and the United States. Similarly, as underscored in its 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper, Australia seeks to develop its ‘Indo-Pacific partnerships’ with Japan and India in the areas of maritime security and naval capability development.
Meanwhile, Vietnam continues to explore closer maritime security and defence industry cooperation with the United States. Vietnam has also strengthened cooperation with US allies through the adoption of the Vietnam–Japan Joint Vision Statement on Defense Relations and the elevation of Vietnam–Australia security relations into a strategic partnership.
The FOIP also presents an opportunity for the Philippines to develop its defence capabilities. On 20 June 2018, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte approved a budget of US$5.6 billion to fund the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Modernization Program Horizon 2. The program aims to transform the AFP from an internal security-oriented military to an external security-capable armed force with advanced defence and maritime security capabilities. The United States’ commitment to increase defence investment in, improve interoperability with and prioritise requests for military equipment sales to its regional partners as part of its FOIP strategy could assist the AFP in this modernisation effort.
Under the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, the Philippines agreed to authorise the rotational access of US troops to agreed locations within Philippine territory. During the 2017 Philippine–US Bilateral Strategic Dialogue, both countries affirmed their commitment to ‘uphold freedom of navigation and overflight’ in the SCS. These legal and political commitments provide a substantive basis for the United States to call upon the Philippines to support the FOIP and its freedom of navigation operations (FONOPS) in the SCS.
But the Philippines’ continued support for US FONOPS and potential engagement with the FOIP strategy will depend on future developments in the SCS. While the Philippines–US alliance remains intact, the Philippines still seeks to defuse tensions in the SCS and promote closer economic ties with Beijing.
The Philippines has communicated to China certain red lines in the SCS that it should not cross. These include the construction of Chinese facilities on Scarborough Shoal, any attempt to remove the BRP Sierra Madre (a grounded ship that the Philippine Navy uses as a military outpost) from Second Thomas Shoal, any attempt to harass Filipino soldiers on resupply or repair missions, and unilateral exploitation of the SCS’s natural resources. Similar to how former Philippine president Benigno Aquino shifted his foreign policy stance from equi-balancing to balancing China after the 2012 Scarborough Shoal stand-off, Duterte may adopt a more assertive stance towards China should any of these red lines be crossed.
Consistent with Duterte’s current efforts to improve bilateral relations with China, the Philippines’ participation in a coalition of states in support of the FOIP and the regional rules-based order is likely to transpire only if China crosses any of the SCS red lines. On the other hand, consistent with the Philippines’ National Security Strategy, which acknowledges the need to ‘increase the size and deterrent capability’ of the AFP, it is likely that the Philippines will readily support the FOIP strategy in the context of enhancing its defence ties with the United States.
In short, unless developments in the SCS compel Duterte to radically shift his China stance, the Philippines’ engagement with the FOIP can be expected to be partial at best.
Christian Vicedo is Senior Defense Research Officer in the Research and Special Studies Division, National Defense College of the Philippines (NDCP). The views expressed are the author’s own and do not reflect the official position of the NDCP.
1”In response Xi stressed that Beijing ‘cannot lose one inch’ of its territory.”
More importantly, what the writer conveniently left out is the pledge by President Xi that China is not an expansionist nor will it colonize any country.
China could have colonized the Philippines in 1405 when the Ming Dynasty’s Admiral Zheng He (pronounced ‘Her’) set sail with 27,000 men and 300 large ships in seven voyages to survey and map the South China Sea and expand trade far beyond China’s shores but he had no mandate from the Ming Emperor to colonize any country.
It was left to the Spanish Conquistadors 116 years later in 1521, led by Magellan, who colonized the Philippines. As karma would have it Magellan was killed by the fierce tribal warriors of Chief Lapu Lapu, in the battle on Mactan Island.
In 1898, when Spain lost the American-Spanish War the Philippines was colonized by the Americans until they were evicted by the Japanese Imperial Army invaders from 1941 to 1945. In July 1946, the Philippines gained its independence from the US.
What is not well known, even among the academics in Manila, is that colonial Philippines contemplated annexing China’s Spratly Islands in 1933 but then US Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, cautioned that:
a) “the islands of the Philippine group which the United States acquired from Spain by the Treaty of 1898 were only those within the limits described in Article III and”
b) “it may be observed that no mention has been found of Spain having exercised sovereignty over or having laid claim to, any of these (Spratly) islands.”
So how did post-colonial Philippines come to lay claims on China’s Spratly Islands after they were returned to China by Japan in accordance with the Potsdam (1945) and Cairo Conference (1943) Declarations made by the US, UK, China and Russia, the Great Allies of WW2, fighting against Nazi Germany and Japan?
History shows that after ECAFE discovered oil in the` South China Sea in the late 60s, President Ferdinand Marcos annexed 8 features in China’s Spratly Islands on 11 June 1978, using Presidential Decree No 1596, claiming that they were Res Nullius (belonging to no one). He then named them “The Kalaayan Island Group”, never mind that his actions violated the UN Charter.
2 “The FOIP presents an opportunity for the Philippines to be part of a loose coalition of states that are willing and able to counter unilateral Chinese behaviour in the SCS and to preserve the rules-based regional order.”
First, to preserve the rules-based regional order, the US Senate needs to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the only international law of the sea on Planet earth, which came into force in 1994.
Second, to join the US-led FOIP would be a colossal mistake because with the election of President Duterte in 2016, the Philippines has, arguably, for the first time since 1521, a chance to develop into an industrialized/emerging economy rather than be unfairly labeled as the “sick man of Asia”.
What the Philippines needs is not more military confrontations but ‘Capital’, which is the real economic foundation of any economy. It is ‘Capital’ – that is to say, all the productive tools, equipment, well-established industrial parks, factories, farms, plantations, ports, airports, high speed rails and other infrastructures, malls, schools and universities, etc – which ensures the reliable and efficient production of consumer goods for local consumption and for export to create wealth.
Please note that what the Philippines needs is not more ‘Money’ but more ‘Capital’, which China, the world’s largest factory/trading nation, can supply. If all the Philippines needs is more ‘Money’ then, like Zimbabwe or Venezuela, it can crank up the printing presses 24/7 and be instantly rich.
China has proposed to invest about 230 billion yuan worth of ‘Capital’ in the Philippines but with the constant agitation by the Filipino elites, media and academics for more tensions in the SCS, China might be having second thoughts about providing Manila with the much-needed ‘Capital’, without which the Philippines could remain impoverished for, at least, the next few decades.
3 “While the Philippines–US alliance remains intact, the Philippines still seeks to defuse tensions in the SCS and promote closer economic ties with Beijing.”
That is the only recourse for the Philippines to rise economically as all the US will provide Manila are more bullets and bombs, not ‘Capital’.
4 “Consistent with Duterte’s current efforts to improve bilateral relations with China, the Philippines’ participation in a coalition of states in support of the FOIP and the regional rules-based order is likely to transpire only if China crosses any of the SCS red lines.”
China has already declared a policy of ‘Setting Aside’ the disputes in the South China Sea and share the resources there a long time ago. What is Manila waiting for?