The Philippines and the Transformation of the Pacific Region*

“The time has come to say goodbye to the United States,” Rodrigo Duterte said, then president of the Philippines, on a trip to the Chinese capital in 2016. Earlier this month, however, his successor, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., said something quite different to Joe Biden at the White House. “And so, it is only natural that — the Philippines to look to its sole treaty partner in the world to strengthen and to redefine the relationship that we have and the roles that we play in the face of those rising tensions that we see now around the South China Sea and Asia-Pacific and Indo-Pacific regions.”

In the weeks leading up to these remarks by Marcos, the Philippine ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defense met in Washington with their U.S. counterparts, and military forces from the two countries participated in the largest joint exercises in several decades in island areas in the north. An Australian contingent joined in these military exercises.

How might we explain this change in geostrategic policy by Manila? The Philippines’ position between China and the United States began to shift while Duterte was still president. In his view, strengthening ties with Beijing never led to the desired increase in Chinese investments in Philippine infrastructure and the joint exploration of South China Sea resources.

The difficulty is that no one seems to know how to accommodate Chinese ambitions without creating tension and new strategic challenges. This is the real problem, to which we might add other countries’ goals. Moscow, for example, would like to use its resources – oil, natural gas, and technology – to increase its presence in the economic markets of East Asian countries in the Pacific region. This geostrategic reorientation toward the East is reinforced by the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine.

It is in this challenging geopolitical context that the Philippines has to make choices. It does not want to be a mere pawn in the growing rivalry between Beijing and Washington. Marcos has every reason to wish to maintain good relations with Beijing, and the increasing integration of China’s economy with its neighbors is a reality. The challenge is that the Chinese leadership, which does not distinguish between economic and military matters, wishes to control the whole South China Sea. Part of this vast area, however, belongs to the Philippines.

China’s increasing naval threat in this area helps explain Manila’s shift toward Washington at a political, economic, and military level. Its biggest trump card is its geographic position. Without access to military bases in places like Cagayan, Palawan, Subic, or Zambales, the United States’ only logistical support point for operations in the South China Sea would be in Okinawa, Japan. Access to these bases remains a politically sensitive issue in the Philippines.

If we widen our strategic horizon, we can also see a deepening of military relations between Manila, Canberra, and Tokyo. This is a sign that the network of alliances and partnerships led by the United States in the Pacific region is being strengthened. To this we might add that these allies, not wishing to be entirely dependent on the United States, have begun to negotiate their own agreements with each other that would allow them to play a more prominent role in defending the region. Beijing and Moscow are alert to these developments. These are all signs of something structural: the transformation of a regional security order in the Pacific region.

*Editor's note: The original language version of this article is available through a paid subscription.