The Philippines’ Duterte Is Trying to Become Asia’s Erdogan

“I am ready to not really break ties [with America] but we will open alliances with China and . . . Medvedev [Russia],” the Philippines’ firebrand leader Rodrigo Duterte recently exclaimed. “I will open up the Philippines for them to do business, alliances of trade and commerce.” In a matter of months, the Philippines has jumped from likening China to Nazi Germany to flirting with the idea of an alliance with it. Astonishingly, Manila and Beijing are currently negotiating a twenty-five-year bilateral military agreement, allowing Manila to purchase Chinese weapons. By all measures, this is geopolitical drama on steroids.

Embracing Caesarean metaphors, Duterte has said that he will cross the Rubicon, joining the “other side of the ideological barrier” with no point of return. Not short of bluster, he often speaks as if the die is cast when it comes to Philippine foreign relations. To be fair, his astronomical popularity at home, his grip on the Philippine legislature and the sheer force of his political will collectively give Duterte some leeway to introduce significant changes in the country’s domestic and foreign policy landscape.

But what is at stake here? Is the new Philippine leader going the way of Hugo Chavez, actually bent on severing ties with America and plunging his country into the Chinese camp? Or instead, are we witnessing a series of calibrated tirades as a prelude to some reconfiguration in the Philippines-China-America triangle? What is sure for now is that Duterte is reshaping regional geopolitical dynamics and introducing huge uncertainties into the future of America’s pivot to Asia. Yet it is still unlikely that he will end the Philippines’ alliance with its oldest strategic partner.

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-philippines-duterte-trying-become-asias-erdogan-17962