DANGER OF RECKLESSNESS
Washington has taken no public steps to dampen tensions between Manila and Beijing. Rather, Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed full-throated support for “our ironclad defence commitments” during a mid-March stopover in Manila.
Reassured of US backing, Marcos has amped up the rhetoric, proclaiming that Manila would respond to any troublemaking on Beijing’s part by implementing a “countermeasure package that is proportionate, deliberate and reasonable”.
“Filipinos,” he added, “do not yield.”
Such an approach, according to Marcos, was now feasible due to the US and its regional allies offering “to help us on what the Philippines requires to protect and secure our sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction”.
The danger is that as the Philippines grows more assured by US support, it may grow reckless in dealing with China.
Rather than deterring China from further expansion, the deepening Philippines-US alignment and associated Filipino assertiveness may only ramp up Beijing’s apprehensiveness over its continued access to the South China Sea – through which virtually all of its energy imports and most of its exports flow.
And there is little reason to expect that Washington will be able to prevent an emboldened Manila from continuing down the path of confronting China in the South China Sea.
To Beijing, the prospect of an emboldened Philippines forging active strategic partnerships with Australia, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and – most troublesome of all – Taiwan makes the situation all the more perilous.
Fred H Lawson is Professor of Government Emeritus at Northeastern University. This commentary first appeared on The Conversation.
