DUTERTE AND THE STABILITY OF THE WORLD

THE stability of the world relies on President Rodrigo Duterte and his successor’s ability to remain a
dragon whisperer rather than revert back to being a dragon poker, like his predecessor, Benigno Aquino
3rd, whose historical idiocy led him to liken China to Nazi Germany.

Derived by Graham Allison from Thucydides’ analysis of the proximate cause of the Peloponnesian War,
the Thucydidean trap posits that war is the likely outcome of the power struggle between a declining
superpower and an emerging one. Provoked by fear of the other, the former will launch a war to secure
its position or the latter will initiate it to speed up its ascent. American military involvement in the South
China Sea (SCS) conflict might just pave the way for this doomsday scenario.

Historians of international relations have all been predicting that a new world war is looming, and the
SCS is one of the potential flash points. In her 2013 essay “The Rhyme of History: Lessons of the Great
War,” historian Margaret MacMillan saw parallelism in what’s happening now with China and the United
States and “the national rivalries [that] led to mutual suspicions between Britain and the newly
ascendant Germany before 1914.”

At that time, Germany was controlling Belgian ports. Since these ports were close to their coasts, the
British saw this as a threat to their trade routes. So, when Germany attacked France in 1914, which
would give it more access to the maritime throat of the British economy, Britain declared war.

The SCS is the throat of China’s maritime-dependent economy. The Center for Strategic and
International Studies’ (CSIS) China Power Project shows how this sea is existentially important to China:
in 2016, “nearly 40 percent of China’s total trade…transited through the South China Sea;” and about 80
percent of its oil imports pass through it. Since the SCS is critical to China’s survival, it will do everything
to protect that trade route, just as Britain sought to protect their trade route in 1914.

The United States is currently involved in an ever-escalating trade war with China. Destabilizing the SCS
is an attractive option to disrupt China’s economy. The US doesn’t need to launch a conventional
warfare. Encouraging a low intensity conflict would do. Or it could even clandestinely encourage military
adventurism of its ally, the Philippines. Both of which could get out of hand.

In the 1950s, during the Cold War, the great advocate of neutral Philippine foreign policy, Claro M. Recto
once warned about our “dangerous and provocative entanglements” with the interests of the United
States. “It exposes our people to the fearful consequences of another war,” he stressed. “A war which
will be fought on Asian soil with only expendable and bewildered Asians for sacrificial victims on the
altar of power politics and international intrigue.”

MacMillan highlighted the role of public opinion, “fanned by the new mass circulation newspapers,” in
pushing the relationship of Britain and Germany “in the direction of hostility than friendship.” And just
like during World War 1, Macmillan observed, “public opinion can make it difficult for statesmen to
maneuver and defuse hostilities.”

Philippine mainstream media, the Catholic Church, the Liberal Party and its allies, their social media
propagandists, and the Left have been shaping a dogmatic brand of nationalism in the consciousness of
Filipinos. To use a term by sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, these political forces are promoting the
“religionization” of international politics.

Armed with the chauvinistic mindset, they have been transforming “a conflict of interests calling for
negotiation and compromise (the daily bread of politics)…into an ultimate showdown between good and
evil that renders any negotiated agreement inconceivable and from which only one of the antagonists
can emerge alive.”

So far, Duterte has been doing good in being a statesman who refuses to be a slave to public opinion
shaped by a media engaged with relentless yellow journalism. His brand of diplomacy is devoid of
dogmatism, prudent and pragmatic. He refuses to poke the dragon as these ignoramuses want him to
do.

When some of my Filipino friends here in the Netherlands invited me to stage a protest outside the
Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague when the arbitral case against China was filed in 2013, I
emphatically refused and told them that the whole thing was a mistake and that would cost our country
a great deal of money, diplomatic capital, and put our country closer into the crosshairs of the US-China
rivalry.

When Duterte spoke during the June 2015 Asia CEO Forum, I was surprised at his stance on the SCS
crisis. He understood the dangerous geopolitical position of the Philippines. During the campaign,
Duterte kept on mentioning his proposed conciliatory approach towards China. I was thrilled because,
for me, he would seriously turn the tide of history.

For those infected with infantile nationalism, Duterte’s rapprochement with China is cowardice. To the
learned, Duterte’s Recto-like foreign policy is planting the seeds of protection against tragedy — the
Philippines being used by the US as its proxy belligerent with China. And since that would avert
destabilizing the SCS sea lane of communications, Duterte is also doing the rest of the world a great
service, by preventing a crisis that would seriously undermine the global economy and peace. But until
when?

If you find any value in what this blog does, please consider tipping to keep it sustainable. Buy me a
Coffee: buymeacoff.ee/srsasot