While the ongoing conflict in Ukraine continues to dominate headlines, occasionally news stories surface regarding growing tensions in the Asia-Pacific region as well. Driven primarily by the US, these headlines also include the proxies Washington is using to stir up an Ukraine-style conflict in the region.

Among these proxies is the Southeast Asian archipelago nation of The Philippines.

The South China Morning Post in a late June 2024 article titled, “China-Philippines ties on ‘brink of total breakdown’: unpacking the collapse,” would claim to provide an explanation as to why once constructive ties between Beijing and Manila have deteriorated into what may possibly become a destructive confrontation.

The article describes how concrete pillars of a rail project being built with China, have since been torn down, and instead, construction in the Philippines now consists of military bases to be used to point missiles at China.

The article claims:

What began as a story of infrastructure cooperation has morphed into an epic tale of betrayal and confrontation, the once-chummy relationship between Manila and Beijing giving way to escalating geopolitical rivalry.

As with many pro-Western accounts of growing Chinese-Philippine tensions, the article omits the political transition from the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte to that of now President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., and how the independent foreign policy of President Duterte was overwritten by the pro-Washington policy of President Marcos Jr.

Maritime disputes treated as minor bilateral concerns to be worked out with Beijing under President Duterte, were escalated into a growing conflict under President Marcos Jr. with US backing, meant to serve as the very pretext to cancel and literally tear down joint Chinese-Philippine projects and replace it with the expansion of the US military’s footprint across the Philippines.

Beijing claims growing tensions specifically over the Second Thomas Shoal, a mostly submerged shoal in the South China Sea, followed the breaking of an agreement with China to suspend Filipino resupply missions to a grounded WW2 ship at the shoal during the Duterte administration. Under the Marcos Jr. administration, resupply missions resumed with Manila, claiming no such agreement was ever made.

China has since released audio recordings of the agreement, causing Manila to backpedal and claim the agreement was not official.

The question becomes, why has Manila decided to choose confrontation with Beijing rather than cooperation?

The answer is Manila did not choose between confrontation and cooperation, Washington did. Far from defending Philippine sovereignty from “Chinese aggression,” growing tensions between China and the Philippines is a direct result from the Philippines’ own sovereignty already being stripped from it through its political capture by Washington.

The US, through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED*) and adjacent organizations has invested for decades millions of dollars a year to influence and interfere in the internal political affairs of nations around the globe, including the Philippines, to shift the respective foreign policies of targeted nations from serving their own best interests to serving Washington’s.

US........

© New Eastern Outlook