Deciphering Rodrigo Duterte's China Triangulation

Richard Javad Heydarian

Politics, Asia

The Philippine president has been careful to build new bridges without sacrificing old alliances.

“I’ve realigned myself in [China’s] ideological flow … there are three of us against the world: China, Philippines and Russia. It’s the only way,” exclaimed Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte during his four-day trip to China. Not short of theatrics, he also bid “goodbye” to America, vowing “separation” from the Philippines’ sole treaty ally.

As far as rhetoric is concerned, we are witnessing potentially the biggest overnight volte-face in history of geopolitics. In a matter of months, the Philippines has gone from China’s leading regional critic to, at least verbally, a potentially ally, with the century-old U.S.-Philippine alliance suddenly hanging in the balance.

This was Duterte’s first major state visit, breaking with a long tradition of Philippine leaders visiting Washington and Tokyo ahead of Beijing. And he achieved practically everything he sought. Duterte managed to secure $24 billion in economic pledges from China. Around $15 billion are business-to-business deals between Filipino business tycoons, mostly of Chinese descent, and their mainland counterparts. The remaining $9 billion are soft loans, a third of which will be devoted to infrastructure investment in the Philippines, including Duterte’s home island of Mindanao, which has been racked by a four-decade-long conflict and the country’s highest incidence of poverty.