Reality check: Marcos Jr. heads to China

President Marcos Jr. was likely among the most traveled leaders in 2022. Within a span of barely six months, the sole son of the former Philippine strongman managed to travel across Southeast Asia, as well as to Europe and North America. And this week, fresh into the new year, Mr. Marcos will be visiting Beijing as his first major overseas visit. Similar trips to Tokyo and Washington are likely to follow later this year, thus underscoring Mr. Marcos’ penchant for a new brand of “hyperdiplomacy.”

At the rate he is going, our current president will almost certainly surpass his predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, who conducted almost two dozen foreign trips across 20 nations. Unlike the former mayor, who rarely ventured out of his comfort zone prior to being catapulted to Malacañan Palace, Mr. Marcos was raised as a cosmopolitan princeling—one that is clearly at home among global leaders.

But similar to Duterte, Mr. Marcos has also chosen China as his maiden major overseas visit—a major departure from most Filipino presidents, who either chose Washington or Tokyo as their maiden trips outside Southeast Asia. As I predicted last year, however, Mr. Marcos will end up charting a radically different approach toward our major partners and allies.

In a piece I penned shortly after the new president was sworn in (“Marcos Jr.’s foreign policy: A new era?” 6/14/22), for instance, I argued, “… Marcos Jr. is signaling that his foreign policy will be neither one of strategic subservience to the West nor driven by fruitless flirtation with China. If anything, he seems to be taking a page from his father’s strategic playbook by, inter alia, simultaneously pursuing warm ties with all major regional powers, including the US, India, China, South Korea, and Japan.”

And this is precisely the backdrop for his maiden official trip to Beijing, where there are a lot of questions as to the direction of post-Duterte Philippine foreign policy. On the surface, Mr. Marcos has largely parroted Duterte-era rhetoric vis-à-vis China, welcoming a “new golden era” of bilateral relations with the Asian powerhouse, which he has invariably described as our “dependable” and “strongest” partner on the economic front.

Shortly after securing the presidency, he reassured Chinese paramount leader Xi Jinping that Philippine-China relations are ”set to shift to a higher gear” under his watch. Throughout the presidential elections, Mr. Marcos also echoed Duterte’s preference for a diplomacy-centered approach to the West Philippine Sea disputes, rarely even mentioning our military alliance with Washington.

But in his first six months in office, a crucial phase in any presidency, Mr. Marcos radically recalibrated Duterte-era foreign policy. The seeming change of heart was likely a reflection of personal, political, and strategic considerations. He was likely more than reassured by the Biden administration’s efforts to charm the new president, including an early call from the US president, multiple US Cabinet-level visits to Manila, as well as the reassurance by top US diplomats that pending US court cases against the Marcoses won’t be a real hurdle in bilateral relations.

Crucially, Mr. Marcos reconsidered the potential appointment of Sara Duterte as defense secretary, and instead opted to appoint veteran diplomats and soldiers to run his top Cabinet positions. In fact, our extremely capable and strategically deft ambassador to Washington, Jose “Babe” Romualdez, has emerged as the de facto foreign policy chief in recent months.

The upshot is a renaissance in Philippine-US relations, with Mr. Marcos set to fully implement the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, which grants Pentagon access to key bases across the country, as well as oversee the largest number of joint military activities between the two allies next year. On the West Philippine Sea, Mr. Marcos has adopted a far more uncompromising position, repeatedly reiterating the finality of the 2016 arbitral tribunal award at The Hague.

Having made almost zero real concessions in the West Philippine Sea and largely dragging its foot on big-ticket infrastructure projects during the pro-Beijing Duterte era, China will have to offer Mr. Marcos more than just empty slogans and promises. As for Mr. Marcos, it remains to be seen this week what he is willing to offer his hosts who are clearly perturbed by the rapid revival of Philippine-US defense ties in recent months.

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rheydarian@inquirer.com.ph