Xi visits Philippines to celebrate 'rainbow after the rain' with Duterte

“I simply love Xi Jinping,” Duterte said in April. “He understands my problem and is willing to help, so I would say, ‘Thank you, China.'”

On Monday, Xi returned the affection, describing how bilateral relations have rebounded since a low point in 2016 when the Philippines successfully challenged China’s territorial ambitions in the South China Sea before an international tribunal.

“Our relations have now seen a rainbow after the rain,” Xi wrote in an article disseminated by Xinhua, the Chinese state news agency.

Yet even if Xi’s two-day visit to the Philippines is wrapped in adulatory language, hard questions are being asked in Manila whether Duterte’s rapprochement with China has actually helped the country.

Xi’s trip, the first to the Philippines by a Chinese leader in 13 years, will most likely result in multibillion-dollar pledges. But some economists wonder whether the money will actually materialize.

Two years ago, soon after he replaced a Philippine president harshly critical of China, Duterte traveled to Beijing and signed several high-profile investment deals. He told his hosts that “America has lost” in the military and economic spheres, in a blunt rejection of the Philippines’ longtime ally.

Yet China’s investment in the Philippines remains more promise than reality. Only a fraction of the $24 billion in Chinese projects and financing that were agreed on two years ago has been approved for implementation.

“Rodrigo Duterte’s policy since 2016 has fallen short on expectations and has not convinced people of its effectiveness,” said Jay Batongbacal, an associate professor at the University of the Philippines College of Law.

Even as Duterte has soft-pedaled on territorial disputes in the South China Sea, Beijing has steadily built up military bases on islets also claimed by the Philippines.

In 2016, an international tribunal handed the Philippines an unexpected victory when it dismissed Beijing’s expansive claims to the South China Sea, based on a suit brought by the government of Duterte’s predecessor, Benigno S. Aquino III.

Since then, Duterte, who took office days before the tribunal ruling, has declined to push Beijing to honor the judgment, even though international legal precedent is on the Philippines’ side.

“The reality is that the Philippines under Duterte may have squandered the most solid legal ground it has against China in the South China Sea conflict,” Leila de Lima, an opposition leader now in detention on what human-rights advocates say are trumped up charges, said in a statement.

Last week, at a regional summit meeting in Singapore, Duterte appeared to minimize the Philippines’ own claims in the South China Sea, stating that “China is already in possession” of the contested waterway. The United States, which has sent warships to the South China Sea to draw attention to the territorial claims of five other governments, should avoid “creating friction,” Duterte said.

Duterte, who has unleashed a bloody campaign of extrajudicial killings against suspected drug dealers, remains popular domestically, even if his approval ratings have dipped. But his South China Sea rhetoric appears out of step with public opinion in the Philippines.

Nearly 85 percent of Filipinos canvassed for a survey by Social Weather Stations, a respected local polling firm, said they opposed the Philippine government’s inaction on China’s movements in the South China Sea. In recent months, Beijing has landed military jets and stationed surface-to-air missiles on bits of turf claimed by the Philippines and other states.

“Duterte’s statement on the South China Sea, while it smacks of utter pragmatism, has been viewed by many as capitulation bordering on treason,” said Clarita Carlos, the former president of the National Defense College of the Philippines.

Philippine fishermen have pushed back against Duterte for advocating a scheme in which the Philippines and China jointly explore for oil and gas in contested parts of the South China Sea. Such a plan is “tantamount to the complete surrender of the country’s claim and control in the resource-rich marine territory,” said Fernando Hicap, head of a fishing union called Pamalakaya that protested in front of the Chinese Embassy in Manila on Tuesday morning. About 150 protesters had gathered, holding up signs like, “The Philippines is ours, China leave.”

Duterte’s allies say that joint exploration is the only way to take advantage of the South China Sea’s untapped resources. Xi’s visit to the Philippines will catalyze further investment, they say.

“China is now considered a top trading partner of the Philippines, a leading export market for the Philippines and one of the largest tourist origins to the Philippines,” presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo said.

Duterte’s “visionary leadership” has transformed the bilateral economic relationship, Panelo added.

Last month, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, traveled to Davao, Duterte’s hometown, to inaugurate a new Chinese consulate. “President Duterte is the most respected and the most important friend for President Xi Jinping and the Chinese people,” Wang said.

But others caution that even as Duterte courts China, Japan and the United States continue to invest far more in the Philippines.

“Where’s the money from all those earlier big-ticket projects with China?” asked Richard Javad Heydarian, a professor of political science at De La Salle University in Manila, who calculated that of 10 major deals signed two years ago, only a $62 million loan for a dam has been processed so far.

“My concern is a China chimera,” Heydarian said. “China makes huge pledges but those investments force governments to make deep political concessions and the few billions that do come will have questions of transparency and accountability attached to them.”

Duterte’s overtures to China have often come at the rhetorical expense of the United States, which is bound to the Philippines through a mutual defense treaty. “Americans are loud, sometimes rowdy,” he said in Beijing two years ago. “Their larynx is not adjusted to civility.”

But few countries’ citizens are as pro-American as Filipinos are. And influential members of the Philippine defense establishment are worried that Duterte’s conciliatory approach to the South China Sea will only encourage Beijing’s assertiveness, analysts say.

The armed forces of the Philippines has quietly expanded the number of exercises it will conduct with the U.S. military next year, even as Duterte warns that the United States is destabilizing the regional geopolitical order.

“A slavish policy that ignores Chinese transgressions holds back the Philippine military and surrenders to Beijing’s wishes,” said Jose Antonio Custodio, a Philippine military historian. “Suffice it to say, elements in the military are demoralized at this turn of events.”

The New York Times

Xi visits Philippines to celebrate 'rainbow after the rain' with Duterte

BANGKOK — As President Xi Jinping of China begins a state visit to Manila on Tuesday, he can count on few counterparts more eager than President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines.

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