Marcos’s surprising embrace from the US made China back down

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(Bloomberg) – As soon as it became clear that Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has won the Philippine presidential election in May 2022, the country’s ambassador to the US was asked by the White House when President Joe Biden should say congratulations.

“The sooner you call, the better for our relationship,” Ambassador Jose Manuel Romualdez, Marcos’ cousin recalled in an interview. Biden called from Air Force One two days after the election, holding a friendly ten-minute exchange with Marcos that “really set the tone for our relationship with the United States,” Romualdez said.

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That tone, from the US perspective, needs to change. Marcos’ predecessor Rodrigo Duterte has been sidelined by Washington and has repeatedly questioned the Southeast Asian country’s decades-old alliance with the US.

But even American officials have been surprised by just how Marcos has moved the Philippines back to the US since taking office about two years ago. While Marcos did not want to be seen as a US pawn, one official said, he was disappointed by China’s actions in the South China Sea and was involved in strengthening ties with Washington.

“Many expected Marcos to return to the Philippines’ traditional close relationship with the US,” said Gregory Poling, director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington DC think tank. “But they have gone further, doing a generational modernization of the alliance to defend China’s aggression.”

Marcos’ outspoken pushback in China, highlighted by his efforts to publicize the confrontations between the two countries in the South China Sea, has turned him into something like a star between the US and its allies. He has the rare honor of addressing the Australian parliament, and on Friday, he will deliver the keynote speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual security conference in Singapore that brings together defense leaders from the US, China and other countries.

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“I can feel it in DC, you know,” said Romualdez, where he is based. “He is the most sought-after leader today, both around the world and in the United States,” the envoy said.

The West’s embrace of Marcos is a remarkable change from his family’s pariah status after his father was ousted from power nearly four decades ago. Some observers initially thought he would hold a grudge against the Americans for causing his family’s exile to Hawaii after the 1986 uprising that ended his father’s dictatorship.

Biden’s call to Marcos in May 2022 will be followed by high-profile visits from the US secretaries of state and defense, as his administration prioritizes reviving its long-standing alliance to compete with China. Biden met with Marcos on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in September of that year, and two months later the vice president was in Manila.

Within six months of his inauguration, Marcos had completed an almost total overhaul of Manila’s policy toward the US – and by extension, China. Soon, he gave Washington’s military planners something they desperately wanted: access to four additional bases in the Philippines, three near Taiwan.

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U-Turn

Duterte has largely ignored a 2016 ruling by a UN-backed court that declared China’s expansive claims illegal, aiming only for better relations with Beijing — a position Marcos appeared to back on the campaign trail.

But Marcos reversed course once in office, repeatedly citing the 2016 decision and blaming Beijing for escalating tensions. China claims much of the South China Sea for itself, has built military facilities in the reclaimed territory and has conducted large-scale military exercises near Taiwan.

“We did not cause any conflict. We did not create any confrontation,” Marcos told Bloomberg in a March interview. As the threat from China grows, he said, “we must do more to defend our territory.”

At the beginning of his tenure, Marcos seemed to want to balance the relationship as much as possible. He met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in January 2023 on a state visit to Beijing, where the two leaders amicably discussed maritime differences and restarted talks on oil and gas exploration.

Read: Xi’s Fleet Wins South China Sea Energy Battle

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But everything changed a few weeks later. During a visit by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, the Pentagon announced it had gained access to four additional bases in the Philippines, strengthening decades-old military ties.

“This is seen by Beijing as a position for the US to intervene in Taiwan’s contingency because of its location,” said Ngeow Chow Bing, director of the China Studies Institute at the University of Malaya. “It is very difficult for Beijing to feel that the Marcos government has good intentions.”

Two weeks after the expanded military agreement was announced, the gloves came off. On February 14, 2023, the Philippines denied China fired a military-grade laser at a Coast Guard ship, temporarily blinding the crew and forcing them to retreat.

‘squad’

Since then, dangerous encounters in the South China Sea have become routine. Beijing’s fleet of fishing boats and Coast Guard vessels often block Philippine ships and even collide, raising the risk of a conflict with China that could draw the attention of the US.

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China has repeatedly warned the Philippines against involving “external forces” in disputes, while maintaining that its maritime actions are reasonable and professional.

The US and its allies have provided steadfast diplomatic support to the Philippines, while providing real-time intelligence. US planes regularly circle overhead on Philippine resupply missions to dilapidated World War II-era ships that serve as military outposts at Thomas Shoal Kapindho.

The US recently assembled a private group called the “Squad” with the Philippines, Australia and Japan to conduct maritime exercises and provide greater security assistance to Manila. The Philippines is also working on a troop visit with France, in addition to Japan and Australia. In the past few weeks, it conducted one of the largest joint exercises with the US.

Manila hopes to use improved military ties to win more and more U.S. investment from China, its top trading partner.

The US recently pledged $1 billion in technology and energy investments, and a deal to boost the Philippines’ role in the nickel supply chain to reduce China’s dominance is also being discussed. The US and Japan are also committed to building railways, ports and factors in an “economic corridor” on the main island of the Philippines.

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“Our alliance with the United States has become stronger, supported by our economic engagement,” Marcos said last month during his fourth trip to the US in two years.

Marcos has sought to use the clashes in the South China Sea to his advantage, inviting media from around the world to watch China’s actions. And that strategy is showing some signs of paying off, according to Chong Ja Ian, a professor of political science at the National University of Singapore.

“Some of the PRC’s behavior at sea may be more cautious and restrained as a result of the Philippines’ efforts,” he said, using an acronym for China. “It shows that amid growing friction and differences, even Beijing wants to be able to manage the escalation and act more cautiously than it can.”

—With assistance from Rebecca Choong Wilkins, Cliff Venzon and Colum Murphy.

(Update with comments in paragraph 5)

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