The Arroyo administration is at a crossroads, all because its national interest, as determined by the President, is closely intertwined with China’s, to the possible detriment of its close relations with the United States and the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
A series of moves initiated by the Arroyo government, particularly in expanding trade and investment ties with China, has been watched with keen interest by the United States, which has hegemony on the Philippine military, which is completely dependent on US military assistance and intelligence in its pursuit of a pocket war against the Abu Sayaff.
Moreover, Washington has clearly been peeved by the seemingly mindless effrontery of senior Philippine officials who want Manila to cut military deals with China in spite of the existing military assistance pacts with the US.
Needless to say, the umbilical cord of the Philippine military is tied to the US, which has nurtured a patronizing attitude on the poorly equipped Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), which in itself has been swamped by a culture of corruption in sourcing munitions, war material and other requirements of a standing army.
The caveat by the Arroyo government that it wants to enter into multilateral arrangements with Australia, United Kingdom and other countries does not sit well with military and intelligence officials at the Pentagon and Washington.
US officials would never understand the meaning of an independent military policy in the Philippines, its client state, so long as Manila continues to be within the sphere of domination by Washington.
There’s lies the rub.
For the Arroyo government to show that it means what it says, and that it would pursue an independent foreign and military policy, it should veer away from US dictates, and the routine visits or pilgrimages undertaken by Arroyo, her lesser officials and even those from the opposition to White House and the State Department would only mean that the little brown sister and brothers are incapable of weaning themselves from a colonial master.
Not only Wall Street, but also Langley, Virginia, has been rattled by the latest investment pledges by China to pour into the country P240.1-billion for agribusiness projects at a time when the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) is going nowhere.
The vow of second-generation Chinese and Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap to make available more than 1.2 million hectares of land for Chinese investors has jarred US policymakers who maintain that the rapid pace of industrialization in China would force it to transform vast agricultural lands into industrial zones and compel it to source its food in eight years from foreign countries.
This seeming closeness of Manila and Beijing is also sending chills down the spine of ASEAN member-countries that do not want anyone in the regional grouping to take sides in the inevitable clash of China and the US, supposed to be the world’s only superpower that is being shamed daily by the intransigence and perseverance of Iraqi patriots in Baghdad and elsewhere.
ASEAN member-countries see China as a huge market, its economy growing by 11 percent annually, and they see with unabashed contempt the continuing attempt by Manila to act as Beijing’s fugleman in the region.
Here is a case of a fellow ASEAN country playing a role that is akin to a tributary to the Beijing imperial court, and this smacks of a puppetry to a superpower in the making. This, in effect, would push the envelope, so to speak, with ASEAN members soon forced to engage in offering better trade and investment deals with China.
It must be stressed that the US would not sit idly by as the Philippines continues to play footsies with Beijing, with Washington noting the vulnerability of the Arroyo government, whose legitimacy is in tatters and whose popularity is practically sub-zero.
At this stage, the US might as well exercise its dominion on what is essentially its neocolonial subaltern and crack the whip, so to speak.
One option for the US is to immediately cut military assistance as its principal interest, the decimation of the Abu Sayaff, is achieved. Another is to implement its underhanded destabilization plan oust the regime from power.
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