FLEXIBLE ENMESHMENT: THE PHILIPPINES’ NEW APPROACH TO CHINA-US

COMPETITION
By: Justin Baquisal
February 06, 2023

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s recent visit to Manila grabbed international
headlines following the joint Philippine-U.S. announcement to accelerate the
implementation of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement. The agreement,
originally made in 2014, allows the United States to build and operate facilities on
Philippine military bases, but was stalled under former Philippine President Rodrigo
Duterte between 2016-2022. Now, in addition to pushing forward with the EDCA, the
administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. expanded it to cover an additional
four bases on top of the original five agreed upon in 2014.

This is a far cry from when Duterte lodged (and later suspended) a formal cancellation
of the Visiting Forces Agreement that, at a more basic level, allows the U.S. presence in
the Philippines. Since taking office, Marcos has unmistakably shown interest in
cultivating warmer ties with Washington: whereas Duterte refused high-level meetings
with the United States, Marcos met with U.S. President Joe Biden in New York in
September last year, while Vice President Kamala Harris visited Palawan Island near
waters claimed by China in November.

Flexible Enmeshment

The claim by many analysts, however, that Marcos is reinvigorating the Filipino-
American alliance is only part of the story. More fundamentally, Marcos’ actions can be
described as “flexible enmeshment” rather than the more U.S.-reliant, explicitly
principled anti-China foreign policy of former President Benigno Aquino III (2010-2016)
when territorial disputes became the defining issue of China-Philippines relations.
What Marcos is doing is not merely equidistant balancing between the United States
and China or plain old independent foreign policy – labels that speak nothing of the
operational changes he is implementing.

Most importantly, the EDCA is subject to a review in 2024 (Article XII) and entitles the
Philippines to retain non-relocatable structures and improvements developed by the
United States (Article V) even in the event that the deal is terminated. As such, the
EDCA is arguably a low-risk, high-reward bargain for the Philippines: an additional
U.S. security blanket short of a full-blown return to pre-1992 basing access and more
easily winded down if national interests change over time.

As such, the new government has drawn an increased but measured U.S. footprint –
which Washington gleefully provides – to raise U.S. stakes in committing to Philippine
defense, improve the balance of forces in the region, and even helps stem the growing
perception by Chinese officials that the Philippines should effectively be neutral ground
amid great power competition.

While the Chinese embassy in Manila has recently urged the Philippines to stay vigilant
against being taken advantage by the United States given the latest developments, the
EDCA’s positioning in existing Filipino military bases and purported purpose to
advance humanitarian assistance and disaster response make it difficult for China to
openly go against the deal without making Beijing look like it is interfering in a
sovereign decision by the Philippines. The Philippine ambassador to the U.S. stated that
the revamped EDCA is not meant to oppose any country.

Ultimately, the EDCA in the context of China-U.S. competition today may help the
Philippines generate some measure of “strategic ambiguity” toward China that can
better force Beijing to the bargaining table.

Also, it is not so much the actual number of troops or capabilities fielded that matters,
but the fact that U.S. presence will grow. U.S. investments in EDCA make strategic
abandonment of the Philippines more difficult and politically costly for sitting U.S.
presidents – something that does not fully address but still provides some palliative to
the Philippine policy circles’ complaints that U.S. security guarantees in the South
China Sea are only guarantees and not actual text baked into the U.S.-Philippine Mutual
Defense Treaty.

Undoing Unfounded Expectations

Duterte’s dramatic anti-West, Beijing-friendly heel turn in 2016 proved to China – for
the first time – that it is even possible to change the traditionally pro-American
Philippine foreign policy, despite mounting domestic criticisms of China due to its
occupation of features in parts of the West Philippine Sea. This, however, seems to have
created the expectation from China that the Philippines should not host significant
foreign military assets, analogous to what Cuba was to the United States during the
Cold War.

This view, which made strange bedfellows of the Philippine Left and Duterte
supporters, unfortunately had the strategic effect of tying the Philippines’ hands to
some abstract notion of neutrality as independence – a position that says nothing about
how to address the country’s territorial disputes with China. Marcos’ inroads with the
EDCA thus has the political importance of reminding Beijing that Duterte’s
accommodation was conditional, reversible, and frankly aberrant. Even Duterte began
realigning with the United States close to the end of his term.

Under the Duterte administration, China continued to militarize islands in the South
China Sea and harass Filipino fishermen. Meanwhile, China failed to finance its
promised infrastructure projects in the Philippines according to Duterte’s own former
economic minister, which made many question what “win” was gained in the first
place. “Independent foreign policy” interpreted as “peace at any price” and being
“friend to all, enemy to none” ultimately proved Machiavelli’s derision of unarmed
prophets.

To be sure, the new EDCA plans are not significant enough to tilt the regional balance
of power on their own. That would ultimately rest on the success of Philippine military
modernization and whether the United States walks its talk of a military rebalance to
Asia.

The Philippines also needs to walk a fine line to not make EDCA too threatening to
China, by limiting higher-end deployments such as U.S.-operated shore-based batteries
or missiles. Still, the point in these arrangements is to provide the Philippines with
options. Whether or not the country decides to harden its enmeshment with the United
States, it should have that legroom to rapidly address perceived threats to its national
security using its alliance if necessary. Ultimately, future presidents are better
positioned to maintain peace when their defense policies are not limited by unrealistic
expectations from China.

Marcos as the “New Normal”

To his predecessors’ credit, Marcos inherited an Armed Forces of the Philippines that is
relatively much more capable than it was in 2012 when the Philippines and China had a
military standoff in Scarborough Shoal. During his end-of-term speech, Duterte’s
defense chief, Delfin Lorenzana, underscored big-ticket aircraft, radar, and combat
equipment acquisitions, as well as upgrades to the country’s strategic border areas such
as the Pag-Asa island runway and the Mavulis island detachment facing Taiwan.

Cutting through the political noise, the country underwent what two analysts aptly
called as “Philippinedization” under Duterte: a temporary cooling of relations with an
opposing neighbor, while improving its national security infrastructure at the
operational level. Meanwhile, Aquino’s lawfare strategy that secured the Philippines’
South China Sea arbitral award in 2016 effectively constrained future presidents from
any strategic concession of Philippine-claimed areas – something evident in Marcos’
address to the United Nations, despite his clear view that maritime disputes should not
be the lynchpin of China-Philippines relations.

All these developments better position the Philippines under Marcos to pursue
Philippine national interest. Recent developments make it clear to China that the
Philippines is potentially a “holder-of-balance” in the region, being the only country in
Southeast Asia that can realistically host significant American boots on the ground if
China does not behave. China is up for a rude awakening to the reality that a
dissatisfied and threatened Philippines might just grasp at anything when pushed to a
corner.
On the other hand, the United States, sometimes accused of squeezing partners in its
embrace, needs the Philippines to consent to its suggestions, but must prepare for likely
scenarios where its force posture is not accepted by the Philippines hook, line, and
sinker. The Philippines is therefore well placed geographically and strategically.

Washington, however, would be mistaken to interpret Marcos as a return to normality.

For good or ill, Marcos could be characterized as the sedimentation of the approaches of
his predecessors – more flexible and less principled in his enmeshment with the United
States than Aquino, but less charitable to Beijing than Duterte. At the very least, the
Philippines is finally making a more credible interpretation of “independent foreign
policy” – not as a bystander hoping to just steer clear of China-U.S. tensions, but as a
form of autonomy with a well-defined balance of power strategy.