Being naturally mischievous, President Duterte has not only flirted with China and Russia, but has declared an engagement with China, while announcing a “separation” from our geo-political marriage with Uncle Sam.
Brinkmanship a big gamble? This unilateral political move has triggered shock waves and deep disdain from many, like former Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario, declaring it a “national tragedy.” Even former President Fidel V. Ramos has distanced himself somewhat as he advised Duterte to refrain from uttering cuss words at world leaders, global blocs and institutions, like the European Union.
It is unorthodox and risky “brinkmanship,” which is defined as the act of trying to achieve an advantage by either pushing one’s opponent to retreat or to plunge into dangerous situations that could potentially trigger uncontrollable conflicts more disadvantageous.
Political analysts, pundits and experts are now carefully studying this Duterte phenomenon and speculating on the consequences of his statements, often colored or spiced-hot with flaming expletives. Social media has also joined the fray, expressing their concerns as manifested in the SWS survey saying 76 percent of Filipinos still trust the US more, compared to only 22 percent for China.
Some ridicule the idea through parallel consumer symbolisms like a good-bye to American “Spam,” and a welcome to China’s “Maling”. Luckily, he clarified saying “separation” is not “severance” or cutting ties, but simply means exercising its sovereign independence and freedom to pursue separate directions without cutting off old ties.
Learning ropes on a tight rope. As a mayor used to down-to-earth gutter politics, he may not know the decorum, protocols and the eloquence of diplomatic language and, therefore, needs to “learn the ropes” as an old idiom goes.
But because you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, it’s difficult for Duterte to learn the ropes. His arrogant posturing is perceived by many as too risky and likened to burning bridges with America, while still building new bridges to China and Russia, the perceived enemies from the Cold War.
Some consider Duterte’s move as a risky and stupid gamble, considering we have 4 million to 5 million Filipino Americans in the US and over 1.1 million employed in the business-process outsourcing (BPO) industry, which depend 80 percent on American companies. Also affected are billions of dollars in trade and investments. And because Duterte suffers from what critics say are “Foot in Mouth Disease [FMD]” and “Oral Diarrhea,” he is hated by his enemies, but is, ironically, an “idol” and “rock star” to die-hard fans and admired by other Asian leaders for standing up against America.
If these negative consequences will happen, Duterte’s daring tightrope balancing move toward China can end up with the same rope becoming his hangman’s noose. Perhaps, the fears are more magnified perceptions as China and the US, albeit enemies on the geopolitical front, are sweethearts in trade and investments. America even owes China over $1.3 trillion in debts.
Law of unintended consequences. Now that the die is cast, there is no choice but to maximize the gains from warming up ties with our Cold War enemies.
The well-scented and well-heeled elite may not like Duterte’s rough abrasive ways and penchant for the hoi polloi, but his big mouth and tactlessness seem to lead us to the “law of unintended consequences,” which may turn out for the better, thus transforming the situation as a “blessing in disguise” on two fronts.
On the geopolitical and military front, Duterte has unwittingly nipped in the bud the escalation in tensions in the West Philippine Seas as a result partly of US President Obama’s hegemonic “pivot to Asia,” which the Aquino administration subserviently embraced, leading to the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (Edca), that bypassed the Senate; and the US-instigated push for the Arbitration decision in The Hague, all of which fueled the building up of the dangerous near Greek “Thucydides Trap,” which refers to how Sparta and Athens were dragged into the stupid 27-year Peloponnesian wars all because of hubris or arrogance, fear and honor.
He did a Sun Tzu by winning without firing a single shot by softening China’s expansionism in reaction to Obama’s pivot to China, which could have possibly led to similar wars in the Middle East and provocation of war with Russia through Ukraine and Syria. The Internet is full of literature on Obama’s warpath and his veto of US Congress’s Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act and suppression of the controversial “28 pages,” implicating Saudi in complicity with some US officials responsible for causing the 9/11 tragedy.
Building with BRICS. On the economic front, the China visit has resulted in $24 billion in investment and loan commitments, the biggest ever. It has also led us to discover lately the total contrast happening with the countries led by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS), not too publicized in mainstream media.
China has launched its “New Silk Road,” “Maritime Silk Road” and “One Belt, One Road” initiatives aimed at linking Asia to Europe and Africa through massive infrastructures, like mag-lev railways, road networks and power systems. It has set up the Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank, while Obama earlier discouraged many allies from joining AIIB as it excluded China from its Trans Pacific Partnership.
BRICS itself set up its New Development Bank and other BRICS initiatives are building the World Land bridge across the Bering Strait from Russia to Alaska and the massive projects all the way to South America. As a new Suez Canal was built lately in Egypt, plans are also afoot to build a new canal across Nicaragua, similar to the Panama canal.
BRICS has held its meeting recently in Goa, India, and everyone is upbeat. Similar to China, India plans to build 100 cities inland that will help wipe out poverty, develop the internal markets and be less dependent on the coastal port-based traditional maritime colonial trade.
China’s Xi Jinping aptly calls the shift from Western neo-liberal free-market system to the BRICS new thrust as the “win-win development” agenda.
In contrast, while Obama and North Atlantic Treaty Organization are flexing for more war, starting in the Middle East, their economies in America and Europe are facing ballooning financial bubbles that could blow up again, worse than 2008, as Wall Street and the too-big-to-fail banks, including Europe’s Deutsche bank and other ”zombie banks,” are facing bankruptcy despite the trillions of dollars in bailouts, quantitative easings, “bail-ins” of shaving interests from depositors, etc., as a result of freeing the financial markets with the scrapping in 1999 of the Glass Steagall Act of 1932.
Ironically, while the big banks were rescued and fed with more lard that go into nonproductive derivatives now over 2 quadrillion dollars, scores of small banks in America that lend to small ventures that create physical wealth were unfairly closed shop from 2007 to 2012.
Duterte may have blundered, but his “make or break” move may all be positive with a “make with BRICS” thrust. So let’s see, I hope it’s not the derogatory local “leche!”
E-mail: mikealunan@yahoo.com
2 comments
“Law of unintended consequences”? Blessing in disguise?
Everything is well-planned. Risky but planned.
Only simpletons cannot see beyond the crass rhetoric.
You really think everything he’s saying and everything he’s doing are spur-of-the-moment utterance and actions by a “psychopath”? LOL.
You are always a nice read! I must admit I do not belong to the level of your writing prowess but your writing mesmerizes me. Too late to learn it but as I said: you are always a nice read.