Category: Southeast Asia

President Duterte is now saying that he will maintain the alliance the Philippines has with the US, but will not allow any more military exercises:

 Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said on Wednesday his country would maintain its existing defense treaties and its military alliances, adding to uncertainty and confusion over the status of security ties with the United States.

It an apparent break from a weeks-long torrent of anti-American rhetoric, Duterte suggested defense alliances would continue and his foreign policy was to “realign”, but reiterated joint exercises with U.S. troops, a decades-old tradition, would be stopped.

Part of the re-alignment has been overtures toward China and Russia, which Duterte has spoken highly of and plans to visit in the weeks ahead, starting with China from Oct. 18-21.

“We need not really break or abrogate our existing treaties because they say that it could provide us with the umbrella,” Duterte said in a speech to the coastguard personnel in Manila.

“We will maintain all military alliances because they say we need it for our defense.”

It was not immediately clear who Duterte was attributing the comments to when he mentioned “they” in his justification for maintaining ties.  [Reuters]

You can read more at the link, but could you imagine if Trump was to become President what the back and forth between these two would look like?

This makes me wonder if these three were killed as part of feuding between drug gangs or as part of the government’s drug crackdown?  I guess we will find out as more details become available:

Three people, at least two of who were identified as South Korean nationals, were found dead near a small Philippine city on Tuesday.

All three individuals were found with gunshot wounds, with their wrists or legs bound with electric tape, South Korean news service Newsis reported on Thursday, local time.

The bodies were discovered in a sugar cane field near the city of Bacolor in Pampanga Province, about 50 miles from Manila, at around 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday.

Of the victims, two men and a woman who were in their 40s and 50s, one man had had his legs tied with electric tape, and the woman’s wrists were bound.

No arrests have been made and the case is under investigation.

Violent deaths of South Korean nationals in the Philippines have been on the rise in 2016, with the death count up to 6 this year.  [UPI]

You can read more at the link, but Yonhap is reporting the third person is likely a South Korean national as well.

I guess we will see how well the Philippines enjoy being under the hegemony of the Chinese:

The Philippines’ bombastic President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered a halt to his nation’s 65-year military alliance with the United States. Duterte, who is locked in a bitter war of words with the US, has taken steps to suspend joint military patrols and ordered American troops to leave the country.

Duterte’s defence minister, Delfin Lorenzana, said the 28 joint military exercises that the countries carry out each year under a 1951 defence treaty will be stopped, patrols with US navy vessels in the South China Sea had ended and 107 American troops flying surveillance drones against Islamic extremists would soon leave as soon as Philippines soldiers were equipped to take over their duties.

Duterte, nicknamed ‘The Punisher’ or ‘Duterte Harry’, has previously told US told President Barack Obama to “go to hell”, and described him as the “son of a whore” following criticism for his war on drugs. An ongoing US-Philippine amphibious beach landing exercise will be the last during his six-year tenure, Duterte announced.

“This year would be the last,” Duterte said according to The Guardian on Friday (7 October) in the southern city of Davao. “For as long as I am there, do not treat us like a doormat because you’ll be sorry for it. I will not speak with you. I can always go to China.”  [IB Times]

Here is the part that really gets me:

Lorenzana said that he would ask the Philippines Congress for $50m (£40m) to $100m a year to compensate for a hole in US military aid and said the country may contact Russia or China for new equipment.

“We have been allies since 1951,” he said according to The Times. “All we got are hand-me-downs, no new equipment. The Americans failed to beef up our capabilities to be at par with what is happening in the region.”

So they are complaining about receiving free military equipment?  Do they expect the US to give them free F-22s?  If they want modern military equipment to keep up with the Chinese how about buying your own equipment? It is not the US’s fault the Philippines is too corrupt to purchase their own modern military equipment to keep pace with the Chinese.

I don’t know what to make of this guy, but I have been reading that Duterte is extremely popular in the Philippines.  Maybe people have just had enough of the crime:

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte warned President Barack Obama on Monday not to question him about extrajudicial killings, or “son of a bitch I will swear at you” when they meet in Laos during a regional summit.

Duterte said before flying to Laos that he is a leader of a sovereign country and is answerable only to the Filipino people. He was answering a reporter’s question about how he intends to explain the extrajudicial killings to Obama. More than 2,000 suspected drug pushers and users have been killed since Duterte launched a war on drugs after taking office on June 30.

In his typical foul-mouthed style, Duterte responded: “I am a president of a sovereign state and we have long ceased to be a colony. I do not have any master except the Filipino people, nobody but nobody. You must be respectful. Do not just throw questions. Putang ina I will swear at you in that forum,” he said, using the Tagalog phrase for son of a bitch.  [Associated Press]

You can read more at the link, but Duterte blames the violence in the southern Philippines due to the American crackdown on the Moros over 100 years ago.  However, the Moros were fighting outsiders long before the Americans ever showed up.

The UNCLOS ruling was expected to rule in favor of the Philippines, but I think no one expected it to be this much of harsh rebuke against China:

An international tribunal in The Hague delivered a sweeping rebuke on Tuesday of China’s behavior in the South China Sea, including its construction of artificial islands, and found that its expansive claim to sovereignty over the waters had no legal basis.

The landmark case, brought by the Philippines, was seen as an important crossroads in China’s rise as a global power and in its rivalry with the United States, and it could force Beijing to reconsider its assertive tactics in the region or risk being labeled an international outlaw. It was the first time the Chinese government had been summoned before the international justice system.

In its most significant finding, the tribunal rejected China’s argument that it enjoys historic rights over most of the South China Sea. That could give the governments of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam more leverage in their own maritime disputes with Beijing.

The tribunal also said that China had violated international law by causing “irreparable harm” to the marine environment, endangering Philippine ships and interfering with Philippine fishing and oil exploration.

“It’s an overwhelming victory. We won on every significant point,” said the Philippines’ chief counsel in the case, Paul S. Reichler.

But while the decision is legally binding, there is no mechanism for enforcing it, and China, which refused to participate in the tribunal’s proceedings, reiterated on Tuesday that it would not abide by it.

Speaking at a meeting with European leaders, President Xi Jinping was defiant, reasserting China’s claim to sovereignty over the South China Sea “since ancient times,” the state-run People’s Daily reported. His remarks echoed a statement from the Foreign Ministry. The tribunal’s decision “is invalid and has no binding force,” the ministry said. “China does not accept or recognize it.”  [NY Times]

You can read much more at the link, but first of all as the court pointed out Chinese historical claims to the SCS are ridiculous.  Should the Mongolians put in a claim for the parts of China and central Asia they once controlled?  Maybe the Koreans should put in a claim to the parts of northeast China they once controlled as well?

It will be interesting though to see what China does in response.  Considering how much nationalism the communist regime has put into their South China Sea claims they will have to do something.  The easiest thing would be to declare an ADIZ; the most provocative would be to start land reclamation at the Scarborough Shoal which they stole from the Philippines and the international court confirmed.  The Scarborough Shoal is just off the coast of the Philippines and building a base there would put potential US assets based in the Philippines at risk.

So what does the US do in response?  I can’t imagine anyone wants a war over this and the Chinese know this so what is to stop them from moving forward with their consolidation of the SCS?  There needs to be an asymmetric response and the recent approval to sell US weapons to Vietnam is a perfect example.  Determining weapons that could be sold to other regional countries in response to Chinese provocations could be a strategy to think about.

I have always wondered why the environmentalists are not involved in this?  The international court confirmed the Chinese are destroying a fragile eco-system with their scorched earth fishing and dredging in the SCS.  Where is Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace?  This is actually an area I would support them protesting instead of non-endangered whales.  The environmentalists could bring international attention and embarrassment against what the Chinese are doing in the SCS.

Anyone else have any ideas and how the international community should respond to China’s now confirmed illegal territorial grab in the South China Sea?

https://twitter.com/ZacharyKeck/status/738388396444356612

Decision to lift #Vietnam weapons ban "not based on China," says @POTUS at news conference in Hanoi. #VOAalert pic.twitter.com/M7KkhtWqNg

— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) May 23, 2016

I don’t think there is much the ROK government could do about this if they wanted considering the award is from a private foundation:

A prestigious human rights award that commemorates one of Korea’s defining democratic moments has angered an Asian government – because it honors one of its dissidents.

Late last month, Nguyen Dan Que, 74, a pro-democracy activist in Vietnam, was named this year’s recipient of the Gwangju Prize for Human Rights, along with Bersih, a coalition of nongovernmental organizations in Malaysia that fights for fair elections.

The committee responsible for naming the award winners declared on Thursday that the Vietnamese government has demanded a retraction and is pushing Korean authorities to “take all necessary actions” to ensure that the award be withdrawn. Hanoi threatened strained diplomatic relations if Seoul fails to follow through.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

It is pretty amazing how much similarity there is between Rodrigo Duterte and Donald Trump.  It will be interesting to see if he does get elected if he can reduce crime and corruption in the Philippines like he claims he will do:

On the eve of the final day of campaigning, President Benigno Aquino III made a desperate call on candidates to agree to an alliance to defeat the brash Duterte, who has been likened to U.S. Republican presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump for his controversial remarks but has topped election polls.

Duterte’s lead in the polls can be overcome if his trailing rivals — mainly Roxas and Poe — join hands, Aquino said, implying that some of them should back out and support a single aspirant.

Under the Philippine electoral system, a candidate who gets the most votes is proclaimed the winner, even if no one gets a majority. (……….)

A longtime mayor of southern Davao city, Duterte, 71, courted controversy with his profanity-laden speeches, vulgar jokes and devil-may-care irreverence, but has successfully tapped into public insecurities with a bold promise to wipe out crime and corruption in three to six months if he is elected.

The national police chief has doubted that campaign promise. Police have issued statistics showing Davao city, where Duterte has served as mayor for more than 22 years, placed fourth among 15 major Philippine cities with the highest number of crimes from 2010 to 2015.

“I thought he was like Batman and Superman combined,” Aquino said sarcastically of Duterte’s anti-crime pledge.

Aquino, business executives and church leaders felt that Duterte crossed the line when he joked about wanting to have been the first to rape an Australian missionary who was gang-raped and brutally killed by inmates in a 1989 jail riot.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

It seems to me if anyone should get in trouble its the policeman who drew his weapon simply because a service member tapped his beer bottle and made the foam run out:

American troops involved in a bar brawl with Filipino policemen face possible disciplinary sanctions in an incident earlier this month that the Philippine military says has no bearing on ongoing large-scale combat exercises by the treaty allies.

Philippine military spokesman Capt. Celeste Frank Sayson said the April 2 scuffle in western Palawan province was a misunderstanding that was settled amicably. A Youtube video showed one of three Filipino policemen drawing a pistol during the confrontation.

The U.S. military said in a statement that “any potential misconduct of U.S. service members is completely unacceptable” and will be dealt with by the troops’ home unit. It did not give details of the incident nor identified the troops involved.

While off duty American troops appreciate the opportunity to experience the local culture while training in the Philippines, the U.S. military said it “demands high standards of conduct from service members at all times, and takes all incidents involving potential misconduct very seriously.”

Sayson said the incident would not affect Balikatan, referring to the name of the joint military exercises by U.S. and Philippine troops.  [Associated Press]

You can read the rest at the link.