Manila’s new foreign policy: Isolation and appeasement

This is confirmed by a statement by Foreign Secretary Alan Cayetano at the recent meeting of Asean ministers that “… South China Sea claimants will suffer if they are harsh on China”. What acts will be harsh on China will presumably be decided by China, with the endorsement of Cayetano. It is a strange statement and explains why the Philippines has kept quiet on its claim on the West Philippine Sea; in Cayetano’s perspective, it is a harsh initiative that will displease China.
Ever since the modern nation-state was established following the Napoleonic Wars, a country’s national interest has primarily been defined in terms of territorial integrity and its impact on national security. Thus, in contemporary times the worst offence that one country could inflict on another is grabbing its territory through intimidation or war. Such an act of aggression is done through a combination of some high-sounding ideology and perversion of historical facts. Adolf Hitler’s lebensraum, Hideki Tojo’s Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, and now China’s nine-dash line are clones: all three doctrines have the common goal of seizing territory by intimidation or war.
Cayetano’s statement, under the circumstances, is very strange. By seizing territory that belongs to the Philippines, China has done the harshest act that could be committed by one nation on another. Cayetano’s statement is the equivalent of a person who, after being beaten and robbed by a bully, tells everyone that they should be nice to the bully. A victim who makes such an assertion will be labelled a coward, and the outcome is predictable: There will be few takers. We have seen its immediate effect: The United States, Japan, Australia, and even our Asean colleague Vietnam, took exception to the Philippine position. Our new diplomacy is on a perilous path because it ignores the lessons of history. During the reign of royal dynasties, territory was traded like an ordinary commodity, and there were even cases where territory was given as a dowry in royal weddings. But that was before the modern state system was established. National territory is sacrosanct (a motherland inviolable). The only time territory is ceded is when a nation loses a war, as seen in the outcomes of World Wars I and II. The losers in both wars, the Axis powers, lost territory. Cayetano could be the first foreign minister in modern times who gave up his nation’s territory without a squeak.
Appeasing a bully also has not worked, as noted in the oft-cited Munich Agreement in 1938. But at least in Munich, British prime minister Neville Chamberlain gave away the territory of a “faraway country” (Czechoslovakia). In this case, Cayetano is abandoning territory that belongs to the Philippines.
The current policy of trying to do business with an aggressor replicates the policy of Joseph Stalin on the eve of World War II. He believed that by allying himself with Hitler, he would protect his country from Nazi aggression. Stalin forbade Soviet reconnaissance of German territory and continued shipping vital war materials to Germany until Hitler’s attack on June 22, 1941. This policy led to the death of 28 million Soviet citizens and, but for the American intervention in World War II, the Soviet Union would have been gobbled up by Hitler.
If we in the Philippines maintain our current foreign policy, we will face isolation from the rest of the world. Within Asean, we will be the partner of Cambodia in protecting China’s interest. We will take the same posture before the rest of the world, acting as the spokesperson for China. The Duterte-Cayetano foreign policy is also inconsistent with the closing lines of our national anthem, which are about resisting oppression. They should take steps to amend the anthem to make it consistent with their new foreign policy.

Hermenegildo C Cruz was Philippine ambassador to the United Nations in 1984-1986.