Pivoting to China

Beijing's rise frays US' network of alliances

Standing in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People last week, Rodrigo Duterte, the recently elected president of the Philippines, made a bold announcement. “In this venue,” said Mr Duterte, “I announce my separation from the United States”. He said that America “has lost” and that he had “realigned myself in your [Beijing’s] ideological flow”. And just in case anyone had missed the point, Mr Duterte added: “Maybe I will also go to Russia to talk to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and tell him that there are three of us against the world — China, the Philippines and Russia.” Mr Duterte’s words set off understandable jubilation in Beijing and concern in Washington, where the US State Department declared itself “baffled”. But this is par for the course for Mr Duterte, who since his election has made no secret of the fact that he is not pleased with the Philippines’ long-standing alliance with the US and its prickly relationship with the People’s Republic — a relationship most recently soured by its case against Beijing over illegal constructions on disputed South China Sea islands.

It is true that Mr Duterte’s strong words are his own, and reflect a hardened anti-US stance that emerges from his upbringing in the Philippine island of Mindanao – where the scars of US occupation can still be sensed – as well as his tenure as mayor of the city of Davao, where he felt the US was not an ally in his war on drugs. The US’ ties to the Philippines do indeed run deep, and cannot be easily severed. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that the island chain – long believed to be holding the frontline against the southward expansion of Beijing’s influence – is no longer the bulwark it was. From a 30,000-foot perspective, it is possible to see this as another iteration of the slow expansion of China’s power. Over the past decade, China has become the biggest player in Central Asia; is increasingly the biggest state player in Africa; has won over crucial US allies in Southeast Asia; has sought to weaken the European Union by wooing its eastern components; and has made a splashy entry into India’s own neighbourhood. The decade that began with Barack Obama’s much-publicised “pivot” to Asia has not exactly been kind to the US influence.

China’s increasing influence is, in many ways, a natural corollary of its ever-strengthening military as well as the vast reserves of cash it has to invest in capital-starved developing nations in Asia. But no process is entirely linear, either. It is worth noting that China’s relationship with its immediate neighbours, including Taiwan and Vietnam, which was close to being stabilised 10 years ago, is now much more volatile. And many countries in which China has in fact invested large sums are not entirely happy with what they are expected to give back in returns. In both Myanmar and Sri Lanka, Chinese infrastructure investment has become a political hot-button issue. Even in the Philippines, there is deep popular distrust, according to most opinion polls, of China as compared to the US. Mr Duterte’s pivot to Beijing is as much a product of his own personal past as of the grand sweep of history. Yet it is clear that the US’ network of alliances that has long dominated Asia and beyond is increasingly frayed as China asserts itself.