Philippines

Philippine academic Renato Cruz De Castro asserts that the Philippines will have to fall back on the strength of the Philippines-US alliance in the face of a possible US-China armed stand-off in the Taiwan Strait.

Academic Ngeow Chow Bing takes stock of the "one China" policy of Southeast Asian countries, noting changes in interpretations over the years and their subtle differences from China's "one China" principle and the US's "one China" policy. He warns that US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan has exacerbated cross-strait tensions and could further limit Taiwan's international space in Southeast Asia.

While it is too early for his foreign policy platform to fully emerge, the Philippines' new president will have his hands full in calibrating Manila’s relationships with Washington and Beijing. It is not a foregone conclusion that he will lean strongly in either direction. This is in the context of continuing issues such as the South China Sea, with disputes over the Whitsun Reef and Second Thomas Shoal.

The political environment in Asia has been marked with upheavals and instability. While each country has their own system of democratic elections in the modern sense, they appear to share a number of common themes that resembles the backward political practices of 19th century Europe. Academic Chen Liujun assesses the regional developments.

With Ferdinand Marcos Jr achieving a landslide win in the Philippine presidential election, how will the Philippines’ China policy change? In particular, given the legacy of the Marcos family’s good relations with China as well as former President Duterte’s pro-China stance, how will the incoming president handle relations with the US?

Even under China-friendly President Duterte, Chinese BRI projects in the Philippines still encountered strong political opposition and faced several challenges in their roll-out. Ultimately, a positive domestic response to the BRI hinges on whether Manila can negotiate mutually beneficial and fair deals that allow China to contribute to the Philippines' economic agenda.

Foreign policy does not usually feature prominently in the Philippine presidential elections, but it should in May this year as candidates will be expected to raise the country’s China policy in policy debates given the accommodating approach adopted by the Duterte administration and its residual effects on the country’s body politic and strategic posture. Apart from territorial disputes in the West Philippine Sea, China’s impact on issues such as food security and access to natural resources, migration, business regulation, and transnational crime would also come to the fore.

The sale of BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles to the Philippines, even when it is a product of collaboration with Russia, is the first indigenously developed weapon system India has sold in the region, and could drum up interest from other Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam and Indonesia. With this development, India-China competition in the Indo-Pacific is set to increase as India sends a signal that it is able and willing to respond in kind if China continues to arm India’s adversaries and influence its neighbours.

The winner of the 2022 Philippines presidential elections will determine how the Philippines will handle its legally recognised claims in the West Philippine Sea both domestically and in the regional arena. While current President Rodrigo Duterte has gone against public sentiment several times with his relatively friendly stance towards China, his successor will have to decide how to handle Chinese maritime actions that put pressure on smaller neighbours in Southeast Asia.