Growing closer to Moscow is not a deal-breaker for Manila in terms of its relations

with Washington. Concurrently with the declared policy shift of closer ties to
Russia, Duterte hascalled for US Special Forces to leave the Philippines. This is
not the first time PhilippinesUS defence relations have taken a downturn.
Twenty-five years ago the US military was expelled from Subic Bay naval base.
But at the beginning of 2016, the Philippines Supreme
Court voted overwhelmingly to allow US forces to return. Fluctuation is part of
the PhilippinesUS defence relationship, which is not consistent with the
determinism implied in Dutertes Rubicon remark.

President Dutertes overtures to Russia do not constitute a zero-sum shift in

Filipino foreign policy. Rather, it may simply mean the start of a more multi-
faceted outreach in defence affairs, in which the Philippines includes Russia as a
partner while balancing its ties to the United States and China. Duterte may be
driven by a desire to reduce dependency on the United States. Yet he may have
also calculated that as tensions continue to grow, multilateralism could be the
best way forward. The 10-nation group, set to mark its 50th Anniversary next
year with the Philippines occupying the chair, is already beset by divisions
focused on Chinas rising influence and the United States strategic role in the
region.

During a recent official visit to Beijing, Duterte announced the separation with
long time strategic partner the U.S. in favor of China, only to retreat from the
position upon his return to the Philippines. I said separation what I was really
saying was separation of a foreign policy. In the past and until I became President
we always follow what the United States would give. Separation of my foreign
policy that it need not dovetail the foreign policy of America thats what I
meant. Sever is to cut separate is just another way of doing it, Duterte said.

Philippines reassures US

Philippine Foreign secretary, Perfecto Yasay moved to reassure the international

community by telling visiting U.S. Assistant secretary of State for East Asian and
Pacific Affairs, Daniel Russel, that Duterte had already walked back his
comments.

But analysts say uncertainties over Duteres policy shifts will have a wider impact
within ASEAN.

Carl Thayer, a defense analyst with the University of New South Wales in
Australia, said Dutertes unilateral comments may affect ASEAN regional stability
as the President fails to prior consult other ASEAN members.

The uncertainty in the region by unilateral actions is something that Dutertes

going to need to address because shortly the Philippines becomes the chair of
ASEAN starting next year, Thayer said.

South China Sea tensions

But Thayer said a positive outcome to Dutertes visit to China is the likely easing
of regional tensions over conflicts over the South China Sea. Former Philippine
President, Benigno Aquino unilaterally challenged Chinas maritime claims in the
South China Sea. In July an arbitral tribunal ruled against China, a verdict
rejected by Beijing.

The South China Sea is no longer the issue that it was when the arbitration case
was pending and the way Duterte is handling it. It has taken the sting out of that
issue and provided China with the incentives to pick up [Dutertes] diplomatic
initiative, he said.

Long term impact

He said a less assertive China in the region is to be welcomed by other ASEAN

members.

But Thitinan Pongsudhirak, director of the Bangkok-based Institute of Security

and International Studies (ISIS), said Dutertes uncertain policy shifts may impact
ASEAN over the longer term.

This is going to spell long term implications for ASEAN because

Manila/Philippines is a long term treaty ally of the United States and Thailand is
the other ally. So two allies of America in South East Asia are relatively estranged
now. This is going to be a dramatic tipping point for China-U.S. relations in the
region, he said.

Thitinan added that another risk is the future of President Obamas pivot to Asia
policy, leaving the U.S. to adjust its regional policies.

China's growing influence

He says recent events further highlight Beijings growing influence over

Southeast Asias mainland nations -- Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand.

This means that ASEAN is going to be in Beijings orbit next year much more
than Washington and Washington will have to really think about what to do in the
long term. This is detrimental for ASEAN because ASEAN wants a balance
between Washington and Beijing not to be too much one way or the other, he
said.

Diplomatic efforts within ASEAN to set a unified policy over China and the South
China Sea have been seen to be undermined as Beijing countered with
diplomacy to isolate individual countries.

Ashley Townsend, a research fellow at Australias Sydney University, sees

increasing difficulties for ASEAN in finding a common position over issues such as
island reclamation and militarization of the South China Sea.

ASEAN stability shaken

But he warns a divided foreign policy in the Philippines will leave ASEAN as an
organization in limbo when it comes to these big regional strategic questions
about policy towards the South China Sea or ASEANs place, vis-a-vis the U.S.
and China.

Others, such as Dennis Quilala, an associate professor at the University of the

Philippines, remain cautious but see Dutertes China policy as being in the best
interests of the Philippines by easing regional tensions.

But Quilala still holds concerns over the possible impact of the presidents policy
shift.

I am really afraid if its just a shift of who our new masters will be. Thats what
Im afraid of. I hope that the policies really are able to successfully work with
both superpowers and be able to think about our interests. I hope that this will
end that way because I really dont think that our interests is just going all the
way to China, Quilala said.

He said to understand the Philippines foreign policy under President Duterte it is

best to wait for the policy pronouncements coming out from the bureaucracy
that is the safest way to understand [Duterte] I guess.

artikel 3

Just into his fourth month as head of state, President Rodrigo Duterte of the
Philippines has managed to become one of the most controversial actors on the
global stage, rivalling if not eclipsing Donald Trump. His war on drugs, marred by
the extra-judicial execution of drug users and peddlers, won him the title of
serial killer on French television. More recently, his telling US President Obama
to go to hell and his declaration of separation from the United States and
alignmentwith China and Russia during a state visit to Beijing has alarmed and
befuddled governments in the East Asian region.

Foremost among these is the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Japan,
which has been tightening its ties with Washington and considers the Philippines
a vital element in the US-Japan strategy of encircling China and limiting its
capability of projecting its maritime power. A visit to Tokyo by Duterte earlier this
week did little to reassure the Japanese. Coming out of a meeting with Duterte, a
top foreign policy official of the Japanese government told me that he found
Duterte unnecessarily provocative towards the United States.

Breaking down Duterte

What exactly is Duterte up to and why are the Philippines neighbors so alarmed?

If I were to break down the complex political animal that is the President, I would
probably highlight the following elements:

First, one must not underestimate his personal history and psychology. He is
likely to have retained the anti-American sentiments that were prevalent during
his student days in Manila in the 1960s. He is also a very thin-skinned person,
and he took US criticism of the extra-judicial killings that has been the trademark
of his war on drugs personally. Also, he does not see a distinction between
himself and the state and thus views criticism of himself as an assault on
national sovereignty. Letat, ces moi may well be the most fitting description of
the way he views his relationship to the Philippine state.

One must also point out that he is attracted to China because its authoritarian
system appeals to his own strongman personality. Chinas telling off the US that
domestic policies, including the states stance towards individual rights, are none
of Washingtons business, is something that appeals to Duterte. This political
psychological affinity towards Beijing is something that must not be
underestimated.

Second, being a lawyer, Duterte knows that, despite its military treaties with the
Philippines, Washingtons position is that it is not legally obligated to support and
protect the Philippines territorial claims in the South China Sea or West
Philippine Sea. Indeed, the US has been explicit that it does not intervene in
sovereignty issues.

Third, Duterte knows that all that the US-Philippine Enhanced Defense
Cooperation Agreement of 2014 did was to put the Philippines on one side of a
superpower struggle, with all the costs and few of the benefits that go with being
a junior partner of such an alliance. Despite his penchant for ideological
statements (when he is not uttering curses), he is a foreign policy realist who
knows that Washingtons strategic goal is to contain China, scorns its rhetoric
about it being a benevolent hegemon, and is impatient with claims that there is a
coincidence of interests between Washington and Manila.

His pragmatic streak is also evident in his ambiguous statements on the future of
the defense treaties with the US. Although he might be bent on pushing for a
more independent policy for the Philippines and distancing Manila from
Washington, he is not likely to immediately scrap the existing military treaties
with the United States. He may, however, put them in cold storage.

Duterte versus the System

In any event, whatever may be the motivations for his distancing himself from
Washington and declaring his alignment with China, Dutertes behavior
constitutes a profound challenge to the post-World War II system of regional
security in the Asia-Pacific. That system has had three basic assumptions.

First assumption: the countries of East Asia cannot be relied to on to create a

system of regional peace and security by themselves.

Second assumption: only US military power and a system of US-dominated

bilateral alliances with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Australia can
maintain regional peace and security, not a multilateral system like North
American Treaty Organization or a collective security agreement incorporating
rival countries.

Third assumption: the interests or Washington and the interests of the Asia
Pacific countries coincide, making the US not a coercive but a benevolent
hegemon.

Whether he realizes it or not, Duterte is putting a spanner not only in US-

Philippine relations but on a whole system of regional security, and this is why
the elites of Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and a number of Southeast
Asian countries that are wedded to this system are worried about him and the
example he poses to other peoples in the region. From their point of view, he is a
destabilizing element.
From the perspective of many others like myself, on the other hand, he has the
potential of unfreezing the glacial structure of security left over from the Cold
War and opening the way to a new regional system of peace and security that
does not rest on an increasingly volatile balance of power strategy promoted by
Washington and supported by dependent elites.

Washingtons response and Dutertes options

But key questions remain: Is this all bluff and bluster? If not, will Dutertes
disengagement from the US continue to be a volatile one-man show or will it be
pursued systematically? In moving away from Washington, will Duterte be able to
forge a strategy that would avoid making the Philippines a dependency of China?
And, of course, one cannot discount how Washington would react should it come
to the conclusion that Duterte really means business.

The US and Philippine military and intelligence establishments have very close
ties that go back to the colonial period. The US supported Ferdinand Marcos, and
it played a key role in deposing him when he became a liability. Washington
knows that it stands not only losing the Philippines but also seeing a whole
edifice of regional hegemony that has been in place since the end of the Second
World War seriously compromised.

Diplomatic isolation of Duterte could be the US response, which is why Dutertes

patient cultivation of neighbors like the ASEAN countries and even core US allies
like South Korea and Japan--if not to win them over to a new paradigm of regional
security, at least to neutralize them--is a must.

But the US response could be more ruthless, that is, destabilization on the
domestic front. This is an approach that a hawkish Hillary Clinton, should she be
elected president, might not be averse to taking. This is why, if not an effective
consensus, Duterte needs a critical mass behind him, especially since pro-
American feelings remain widespread in the population. That critical mass
remains to be forged.

Many potential supporters fear that his unplanned, indeed haphazard, way of
going about his project may derail it and provide the US with the opportunity to
destabilize his administration. Others who would otherwise get behind him are
put off by what they see as his indiscriminate embrace of China, seeing this as
exchanging one master for another. To win them over, Duterte needs to show a
hardnosed approach towards the Chinese, like using a phasing out of the US
military presence in the country as a bargaining chip in exchange for Chinas
demilitarizing its presence in the South China Sea.

Another significant number of supporters of a nationalist course are reluctant to

lend active support since they are repelled by his murderous ways of imposing
law and order on the domestic front. To gain their backing for his realignment, he
may have to do nothing less than stop the killings.

Rodrigo Duterte has indeed kicked up a storm. It remains to be seen whether

Typhoon Duterte will gather strength or peter out in the foreseeable future. The
outcome will greatly depend on Duterte himself. One thing is certain: if he
continues to conduct his diplomacy as a bombastic one-man show, he is bound
to fail.

Walden Bello is senior visiting research fellow at the Center for Southeast Asian
Studies at Kyoto University. A former member of the House of Representatives,
Walden Bello was the co-author of two joint resolutions to abrogate the US-
Philippine Visiting Forces Agreement. He made the only resignation on principle
in the history of the Congress of the Philippines in 2015, owing to differences
with the previous administration of President Benigno Aquino III, among them his
disapproval of Aquinos signing the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement
with the United States.