(MENAFN- Asia Times) MANILA – Accompanied by a 200-strong delegation of officials and businessmen, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr wrapped up his maiden visit to Beijing in style, bagging as much as $22.8 billion in new investment pledges and finalizing as many 14 bilateral cooperation agreements .
During his January 3-5 state visit, the Filipino president met top Chinese leaders including Li Zhanshu, the head of the National People's Congress, Premier Li Keqiang and President Xi Jinping.
The Filipino president's trip was mainly economics-focused, zeroing in on commercial and infrastructure-related deals and deliberately downplaying the two sides' simmering maritime disputes.
Unlike his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte, who had a penchant for off-the-cuff and inflammatory statements, Marcos Jr exercised maximal statesmanship by focusing on areas of shared interests and concerns. Nevertheless, the two sides tried to find a common understanding over their maritime disputes in the South China Sea.
In particular, they resumed dialogue over potential joint energy exploration agreements in the disputed areas while exploring a potential“compromise” over fisheries resources. Marcos Jr, however, is facing growing public pressure at home to fortify defense ties with traditional allies in order to defend the country's sovereign rights in the South China Sea.
He is also expected to face skepticism at home over China's new investment pledges, especially given the dearth of actualized infrastructure projects under the previous administration.
Chinese institutions pledged a combined $24 billion in loans and investment in 2016 when former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte visited Beijing but barely delivered any of that amount during his six-year tenure.
Confronting an energy and infrastructure crisis at home, Marcos Jr was intent on maximizing his trip to Asia's largest economy. To that end, he was accompanied by former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who he described as his“secret weapon”.
During her presidency (2001-2010), Arroyo deftly sought to play the United States and China against each other in order to attract maximal benefits from the two superpowers. She also oversaw a number of big-ticket infrastructure projects with China as well as an unprecedented joint exploration agreement in the South China Sea.
Members of the Philippine Coast Guard patrol at the Whitsun Reef in the South China Sea on April 14, 2021. Photo: Philippine Coast Guard
Throughout her term, Arroyo forged close relationships with a wide network of Chinese officials, who saw her contributions as a“golden age” in bilateral relations throughout the mid-2000s. Although most of the China-related initiatives would later be embroiled in controversies , Arroyo remained a leading foreign policy advisor to former president Rodrigo Duterte and, more recently, Marcos Jr.
Throughout the past two decades, especially since the Arroyo presidency, bilateral trade has steadily increased, making China a top trading partner of the Philippines. In 2021, bilateral trade reached $82 billion , although the bulk of it was composed of Chinese exports ($57 billion). The Filipino president hopes to enlist China's support to improve his country's basic infrastructure, agricultural productivity and manufacturing capacity.
Early in office, Marcos Jr described China as his country's“strongest partner” for post-pandemic economic recovery. During his trip to Beijing, Marcos Jr declared his hope that China“will continue to invest in the Philippines” and help“stabilize and strengthen all our economies so that we are able to face the challenges and the different shocks that now we are already been able to feel and continue to feel.”
In their joint statement following Marcos Jr's visit, the two sides underscored their commitment to realizing the full potential of their comprehensive strategic partnership by“conduct[ing] cooperation in the four key priority areas of agriculture, infrastructure, energy and people-to-people exchanges, and pursue additional avenues of cooperation in the areas of defense and security, science and technology, trade and investments.”
In terms of trade, the two sides“highlighted the importance of promoting more balanced trade between the two countries by facilitating greater market access for Philippine exports into China.”
On the infrastructure front, the two countries underscored how they“attached great importance to infrastructure development and agreed to carry forward high-quality projects under the synergy of the Belt and Road Initiative and the 'Build, Better, More' infrastructure program to spur economic growth.”
Aside from the Davao-Samal Island Bridge project, however, no big-ticket infrastructure initiative was specified during Marcos Jr's visit. In fact, China's large-scale investment pledges in the past have gone largely unfulfilled , prompting the Filipino president to suspend several underfunded Chinese projects last year.
Nevertheless, the Philippines hopes to enlist Chinese investments in developing high-speed railways, including in the industrialized northern island of Luzon, as well as in underdeveloped regions such as Mindanao.
Cooperation on defense and security matters, however, could prove trickier given the lingering maritime disputes as well as Manila's alliance with Washington. Prior to his departure for Beijing, Marcos Jr promised to raise the South China Sea disputes with his counterpart Xi.
Marcos Jr and Xi had plenty to agree about. Image: CCTV / Screengrab
“I also look forward to discussing political-security issues of a bilateral and regional nature. The issues between our two countries are problems that do not belong between two friends such as the Philippines and China. We will seek to resolve those issues to mutual benefit of our two countries,” the Filipino president said shortly before departing for Beijing.
During his meeting with Chinese President Xi, the two sides reportedly discussed, according to Marcos Jr, the possibility of“find[ing] a compromise [on the] plight of [Filipino] fishermen.” But instead of a concrete agreement, the two sides seem to have instead settled for strengthening pre-existing and proposed dialogue mechanisms among their relevant government institutions.
In their joint statement, the two sides spoke of the need to bolster“direct communication mechanism between the Department of Boundary and Ocean Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China and the Maritime and Ocean Affairs Office of the Department of Foreign Affairs of the Philippines” as well as convening of the 4th Meeting of the Joint Coast Guard Committee and an Annual Defense Security Talks in the near future.
Recent history, however, has exposed the limitations of such communication channels, which failed to prevent major confrontational incidents at the contested Reed Bank, Whitsun Bank and Iroquois reefs in recent years. Last year, Manila filed almost 200 note verbales in response to Chinese perceived provocations in Philippine-claimed waters.
The two sides also discussed the possibility of reviving failed talks on potential joint exploration agreements in the South China Sea.
“I really hope - I would very much like, as you have suggested, Mr. President [Xi] - to be able to announce that we are continuing negotiations and that we hope that these negotiations will bear fruit. Because the pressure (is) upon not only China, not only the Philippines but the rest of the world to move away from the traditional fronts of power,” Marcos Jr said following his meeting with Xi.
Yet, it's far from clear how the two sides can reconcile their legal and political disagreements over disputed energy resources in the area. Both the Philippine constitution as well as the 2016 arbitral tribunal award at the Hague expressly reject China's nine-dash line claims, which encompass large parts of the Philippines' exclusive economic zone and continental shelf.
At home, Marcos Jr also faces growing pressure to defend the country's sovereign rights in the South China Sea. A recent authoritative survey showed that more than 4 out of 5 filipinos want the government to deepen military cooperation with allies such as the us in order to better defend the Philippines' interests in the disputed areas.
“Working with friends, allies and partners as a strategy allows the Philippines to practice an independent foreign policy based on the public's interests,” said Victor Andres“Dindo” Manhit, whose think tank Stratbase commissioned the survey during a recent high-profile forum in Manila.
Meanwhile, the Philippine military has agreed to expand joint military exercises with the US next year, with growing focus on the South China Sea disputes.
Philippine and US Marines during a surface-to-air missile simulation as part of exercise Kamandag joint exercises on October 10, 2019. The exercises were expanded to include Japanese and Korean forces this year. Photo: Lance Cpl. Brienna Tuck / US Marine Corps
To be fair, the Filipino president, who has taken a more uncompromising stance on the disputes compared to his predecessor, has acknowledged“difficulties” and“disagreements” in Philippine-China relations. Yet, he has insisted that the maritime disputes should not be the defining aspect of bilateral relations.
“I believe that this cannot be, we must not allow that [to be] the sum of our relationship... It is not the only relationship that we have with China. It is not over the South China Sea,” Marcos Jr. said during his visit to China.
“Our relationship extends to commerce, culture, education, investment, in trade and in every level,” Marcos added, emphasizing the multidimensional potential for bilateral cooperation.
Follow Richard Javad Heydarian on Twitter at @richeydarian