In review and in prospect
The thing with the precarious position the Philippines finds itself in its dealings with China and the handling of the big diplomatic crises surrounding it — the dispute over various territories within the South China Sea — is that the country has no ground to stand on.
The Philippines lacks a credible indigenous military capability, is dependent on China for its exports, dependent on Chinese tourists, dependent on Hong Kong for employment, and is irreversibly hooked on imported Chinese trinkets. If it hasn’t yet, China will probably overtake the Philippines’ traditional sources of capital (both directly and indirectly infused and regardless of whether or not said infusion is even legal) in the near future.
All the Philippines is grasping at is the goodwill of the big powers it has signed military, financial, diplomatic, and/or trade agreements with and the ability of the United Nations to have its say in how its sovereign members behave. The latter makes this flaccid survival strategy even more ironic considering the Philippines’ biggest rest-back, the United States, is a consistent ignorer of UN directives and guidelines as it is, itself, possessing of a long tradition of unilaterally launching “pre-emptive” military strikes on foreign territory and engaging in whatever forms of activities it takes in its on-going singular focus to secure its interests.
Last week's blog posts
December 17, 2023 by Ramon Ortoll
"As I’ve pointed out in a separate post, it was former President Rodrigo Duterte who paved Marcos’s path to the presidency. Would Marcos have won by a landslide without a Duterte by his side?"
The Philippines’ SISSY culture has no place in today’s world
December 15, 2023 by benign0
"Filipinos see their military and all the new hardware it is acquiring as mere borloloy — quaint ornaments that are all for show but belie Filipinos’ empty 'fight' rhetoric. Form will not save the Philippines. Only substance will."