The Philippines in the Asia Dojo
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Welcome to the Asia Chessboard, the podcast that examines geopolitical dynamics in Asia and takes an inside look at the making of grand strategy. I'm Andrew Schwartz at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Welcome back to the Asia Chessboard. I'm Mike Green, and I'm really delighted today to have with us Richard Hadarian. Richard is a senior lecturer at the University of the Philippines Asia Center. He's the author of Asia's New Battlefield,

The Indo-Pacific, Trump, China, and the New Struggle for Global Mastery, and many other short-form publications that anybody trying to follow the contested space around the Philippines reads regularly. So Richard, really, really glad to have you.

Richard and I were also just discussing our hobbies. I once spent a lot of my youth learning iaido, sword, and kusarigama, Japanese martial arts. It turns out Richard is quite active on taekwondo and now jiu-jitsu. We were going to rename this particular one, not the Asia Chessboard, but the Asia Dojo. But I'm so out of practice, even if I had a sword, and even if we were in the same place, I'd be afraid to fight Richard. So no battle on today's podcast, just intellectual exchange. So Richard...

How did you become really the most sought-after expert on security in the Philippines and not a professional martial artist? What happened? How did you get to this place? Well, we're going to fix the professional mixed martial artist part. Thank you very much, Mike. I had no idea about your quote-unquote Bushido Samurai background. And on the way back from New Delhi just the other night for that India-Japan event,

event talk because I saw you attended the first version. They keep on showing your beautiful face there during your intervention last year. I watched a movie called Bushido. It's a very new movie. It's a wonderful movie and I'm a big fan. So definitely looking forward to more of your story. In my case, for me, mixed martial arts was a way for me to deal with, I think, undiagnosed ADHD. I was quite a feisty kid and I would get into argument with everyone, including over like

economic and political issues from a very young age. My dad would make me listen BBC at the age of six, seven. So the Gulf War events all around the world, that's how I got exposed to geopolitics at a very young age. And mixed martial arts was a way for me to tone down that

sense of restlessness that I had from a very, very young age. And I'm not sure it really helped. I think I'm just sublimating it in a very Freudian sense into all of these thousands of articles and writings and everything I've been doing over the past decade or so. On a more serious note, actually, I got into the South China Sea issues, into Asian geopolitical issues in different capacities, obviously as a researcher, as an academic, but also because more than 10 years ago, in the early 2000s, before the Scarborough actually event,

I was a kind of a junior staffer working with a couple of very brilliant legislators in the Philippines, whether it's Dr. Walden Bellew, a very progressive thinker, and also late Senator Miriam Defensor, one of the most smartest and most eloquent senators out there. So I worked with pretty feisty people, and these feisty people believed in me at a very young age and sought my advice. So me in my own...

pretentious ADHD way, said, I'm going to justify this. I read everything I could read on South China Sea, Asian geopolitics, and obviously Philippine politics and history, which is, I'm still a student of those topics. And from there, I just realized, Mike, I mean, there are wonderful people like you, among others, who have been writing on this region, your fantastic book on America's foreign policy here and all.

due respect to my colleagues in the region, in the country, etc. I think we need more voices from our part of the world and not to mention of course from the younger generation. So

I know this is going to sound pretentious, but I always felt this sense of mission and this sense of also pressure that there has to be more of storytelling, but also more of analysis coming from within the region in as much as obviously there are brilliant people like you, Mike, giving fantastic commentaries, very nuanced commentaries on our part of the world. Well, look, you're doing exactly that. And just from a parochial American interest point of view,

This region is going to be more stable if the multipolarity of power is harnessed and if there's more agency from the Philippines, Korea, Indonesia. And for that, you need voices. You need strategic voices. So that's why it's such a great pleasure to have you on. And I'm not just saying that because I'm afraid of your Taekwondo skills.

So let's start big picture a little bit. When I think of the Philippines geopolitical situation, I think of Trotsky, who famously said, you may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you. That's where the Philippines sits. How does it look for Manila when you look out at the broader, obviously there are problems at Sankatama Shoal, Scarborough Shoal, but more broadly, how does the geopolitical picture look to most people in Manila these days?

Well, actually, speaking of Trotsky, always also like one thing else that he kept on saying, which is his position in the First World War situation, neither peace nor war, right? Like we're not going to side as much as possible with any of the antagonists. And at the same time, we cannot be passive.

So obviously, we're a USGTL. Obviously, we are part of a network of like-minded powers and players in this part of the world. But I'm also a strong believer that it's time for the Philippines to fully embrace its role as an emergent middle power and also as a responsible stakeholder in this part of the world and at the same time protect its strategic autonomy.

in as much as possible, something that perhaps would be much more difficult with the second Trump administration coming in. We can discuss that separately. Coming to the Philippines, I think you're absolutely right. I think the problem is that for a very long time, because of the American security umbrella or the presumed American security umbrella,

Our very Latin American style political leadership in the Philippines was as complacent, if not lazy, as it could be. In terms of external security, we effectively outsourced it to you guys for a very, very long time. And there were already alarm bells being set off right and left. I mean, this was the Mischief Rift incident in 1994, 1995, when the Clinton administration refused to intervene on our part. I remember there was a talk by Joseph Nye in Harvard,

more than a decade ago when he was explaining from his point of view, I think it was in Pentagon back then, if not the State Department, when he was saying, oh, we have no horse in that race. And that should have been a wake-up call for the Philippines, that you cannot just kick out the American bases or you no longer host American bases and then expect...

Or you can just call the Americans the cavalry to come any moment. And then, of course, really things exploded in our face during this carboration crisis in 2012. So we've been getting these alarm bells over and over again throughout the decades that, hey, Philippines, you cannot just expect the Americans to save you every time you have an external security problem. And you cannot be bogged down with domestic security issues forever.

I mean, Mike, I'm sure many of the American experts know that in the 60s, the Philippines had the most capable armed forces in Southeast Asia at the very least. And we were the bully. We were the little bully here, which is, in fact, in the 1970s, we were the first one to build the first modern airstrip.

In the area in 1977, Marcos Sr., the father of the current president, he oversaw military construction activities. The Vietnamese, the Malaysians, even the Chinese were piqued by us. They were scared of us. So Henry Kissinger had to come up with this idea of essentially strategic ambiguity. Do not allow these pesky Filipinos use our mutual defense treaty to bully everyone else. We're going to get dragged into problem, right? And that strategic ambiguity will obviously be carried all the way to the Obama administration and something that you have also covered in your works.

Now, going back to this, but the problem is we had very capable armed forces, but also that brought hubris. So former strongman Marcus Senior, he was very much interested also in taking back Sabah, which is an oil-rich part of Malaysia that we believe it belongs to us. So it was very adventurous. That happened.

This misadventure really went wrong, eventually triggered an all-out war in southern island of Mindanao and a Muslim insurgency. And only now we're about to wind that down. So what happened was that the Philippines went from a very capable, well-armed American ally, a country was pushing the envelope right and left, including in the South China Sea, to suddenly becoming a basket case.

if not a semi-failed state. So it was not only until recently, Mike, that I think the Philippines has begun to modernize its armed forces and adopt a more mature strategic posture. So I think that's a big picture. Another thing I want to add here is the Philippines also has

The misfortune, I would say, of being stuck right in the middle of two realms of great power contestation. The first one is obviously the first island chain. And in the case of the Philippines, Mike, I can go to Taipei in just over an hour. If I want to go to any major civilization capital, it takes me three, four, five hours. That just tells you how close we are to the Taiwan question.

especially our northernmost military bases and facilities that we can discuss later on. And that's where our alliance comes in. But obviously, we also embrace the South China Sea, where we have a very feisty back and forth with the Chinese. And at the same time, obviously, Mike, we are also embracing the Philippine Sea and the Western Pacific, where there is also a great power contestation, which is going to intensify in the coming decades.

So we're smack right in the middle of that. And at the same time, we have to really do a lot of catch up so that we can live to the promise and the challenge of the moment.

So war is interested in you and especially the archipelago. When Joe Nye was assistant secretary of defense in the mid 90s and there was a crisis over Taiwan, the U.S. Navy was able to send two carrier battle groups through South China Sea past Hainan Island with real impunity. Now it's contested more. And the Philippine archipelago is particularly important because it flanks Taiwan and Japan. And the undersea topography is ideal for sneaking submarines out into the broader Pacific.

and deeper waters between the first and second island chain, and really preventing the US from entering within the first island chain and complicating any US or Japanese operations outside. Do you think most people in the Philippines debate understand the degree to which Philippines real estate means there is no, there really, in my view, at least is no option for neutrality if there's a real crisis? Do people get that now, do you think?

There are a couple of, let's just say, enterprising figures, some of them literally Trotskyites, right, who are arguing that the Philippines should stay out of this great power intramural, that we shouldn't be a proxy of America. You're going to hear that from a lot of

Progressive circles. I consider myself a progressive, so I get into debates and discussions with a lot of these people. But my point is, I think as far as the core strategic elite in this country is concerned, serving the defense ministry, the armed forces, national security, all of these people I'm talking to regularly, more regularly recent here because...

Duterte is no longer the president. I had a very complicated relationship with the previous administration. Mike, our coastline is as big as Russia's. So we're number five or six in the world, depending on how you're going to count it. So we also realize like, oh, my God, there's just so much to cover and there's so much blindness and there's so much deficiencies.

So what we did, Mike, earlier this year is we launched the comprehensive archipelagic defense concept. The idea that we have to have a 360 degrees maritime security domain awareness and hopefully security.

maritime security capabilities to defend ourselves and do what we have to do to secure our exclusive economic zone and waters. So we're just in the beginning phase of that. So as I mentioned a while ago, for a long time, our focus was counterinsurgency and counterterrorism. So a lot of our

Strategic attention, bandwidth, and assets were concentrated in our tri-border with Malaysia and Indonesia. A lot of ISIS elements, Daesh elements got through that. Hence, you had the 2017 Marawi situation. The Philippines, unfortunately, was the quote-unquote second front of the global war on terror for quite some time.

And then, of course, since 2011-12, we're now focusing more on the South China Sea or what we call the West Philippine Sea area, which is our exclusive economic zone there. But we're kind of blind and really not much to offer on other parts of our

And those are the things we're developing. So now there's more and more concentration on Taiwan. Obviously, our government will say it has nothing to do with Taiwan. It's just about developing our domain awareness in the northern area. But we know it has everything to do with Taiwan because, Mike, the nightmare scenario for the Philippines is that

China will be our immediate neighbor. Can you imagine, Mike? I mean, of course, we don't want China to take over those little islands and islets and prevent us from exploiting resources within our exclusive economic zone. But even a bigger nightmare, a lot of strategists would tell you in the Philippines is having China as our immediate neighbor, meaning occupying Taiwan and staring down at us, including some of our military bases, which are like a

just a few dozens of miles away, like in Mavulis, for instance, in the Batanas area, among other things. So Mike, it's not just that geopolitics is interested in us, it's the velocity of geopolitics moving and encroaching upon us, like night walkers a la Game of Thrones. So we are waking up. We are waking up to that very... The winter is coming, if I can put it that way, for the Philippines. And

We're recognizing that, Mike, it's an anxious moment. We have some feisty debates, but I think we can discuss it separately. But I think after the whole Duterte experience, which is, oh, just be nice to China and everything will be fine and cuss at the Americans and you can get whatever from them. We realize that's not going to work.

Right? So now it's time for maturity. And in fairness to Ferdinand Marcos Jr., I'm not a fan of the Marcos's, to be honest about it, because of the legacy of dictatorship and all of that. But I think he has been a pretty decent statesman and very responsible one. From what I understand, talking to the top national security folks in the government, he seems to be a leader who understands the gravity of the moment and that we have to step up to the moment in tandem with like-minded powers and friends. I think President Marcos has been a

really unexpected and pleasant surprise, frankly, for Washington and Tokyo and others. And we'll come back to the Dutertes and the whole domestic politics. And by the way, we have Trotskyites at the University of Sydney. In fact, the student council is controlled by the Trotskyite faction. And they occasionally put out something calling me a warmongering imperialist, which my wife and kids probably send to all our friends. So this comprehensive archipelagic defense concept...

This is not something the Philippines can really do alone. Obviously, the U.S. is playing a role with maritime domain awareness. The Hamilton-class gutters, my father-in-law was Coast Guard. He served on one of those fantastic ships. The Japanese...

Playing a big role, Australia, both for maritime and demerit awareness, and then back in the Mindanao fight as well, the Australians were helpful. How do you look at, how do you think the government looks at Australia's friends and partners? What's the role? What's the opportunity for the future? Are all these networks, the lattice work that the Philippines now enjoys, have we plateaued or do you think there's more to come?

Well, first of all, let me start with Australia, which is very close to my heart. I used to spend a lot of time there, especially during Duterte time, the semi-exile situation. And of course, for personal reasons, I remember very well when I was in Canberra. And one of the times I was in the Philippine embassy there, they were visiting generals from the Philippines. And I talked to a lot of them. And a lot of these generals, Mike, were involved in the Marawi operations against the Daesh, Mauti groups. I mean, I know you're an American, but

A couple of Filipino journalists would tell me like, actually, we like working with the Australian mites more than the Americans because they're less overbearing than the Americans. And they don't really flaunt their big guns the way the Americans do. Like the sense that the Aussies can be swashbuckling, but in a very cool mite way. So many were telling me how they love working with it. Of course, the former defense minister, Secretary of Defense,

Secretary Lorenzano was a very good friend of mine. I come from the north of the Philippines, the Ilohanos, where the Marcos has come from. So I leveraged that ethnic tie because much of our military elite comes from that background. So we're like the Kshatriyas, right? So that kept me safe and alive probably during the time. And so I was talking to a lot of these generals, sometimes talk to them in our local language and dialect, and they'll say, oh, we love working with Australians. I love them studying in the University of New South Wales. And

immense gratitude for the real-time intelligence and surveillance capacity that the Australian Forestry were providing. Malcolm Turnbull,

I think our good friends on Twitter, among other things, he really understood the situation. And I'll tell you what, Mike, our former president Duterte had nothing good to say about your lovely country or any Western country for that matter, except Australia. And Japan, maybe? No, Japan is not Western in the eyes of Duterte. Oh, yeah, yeah. Because he had a Duterte, I think, look, everything you say about the Americans is true. It's the only Americans we have. If it's any consolation, the Australians are overbearing with Americans.

But Australia and Japan, I was going to ask you about Abe because Abe's relationship with Duterte, Japan's connection to Manila, really in the Trump years, and frankly, even in the Obama years, where there's some questions about the US, really, I mean, US, most Americans don't know this, owe a huge debt of gratitude to Japan and Australia for keeping our treaty alliance with the Philippines moving forward in some tough times. So tell me about Japan.

Yeah, but just quickly on the Australian one. So actually, there was one site that Duterte went on board an Australian warship, was doing a goodwill visit to the Philippines and thanked them, said, thank you for supporting us during our operation. You'll never hear Duterte saying that about any Western partner up until the pandemic, of course. Then he thanked the Americans for the vaccines. Japanese, I mean, Mike, I mean, Japan is Japan. I think...

We don't have real two-party systems in the Philippines, but I think maintaining good relationship with Japan is as close as it can get when it comes to a bipartisan consensus in the Philippines. Whether it's a reformist president in the person of former President Aquino,

who visited Japan, I think, more than seven times and gave a speech at the Japanese Diet. Where is an alt-right populist pro-China guy like Duterte, who said he loves Japan and Japan has had long relationship with this home island, home city of Davao, extending more than 100 years ago. And now with this kind of standard president, if I can put it under Marcos Jr., all of them have great relationship with Japan. And Mike, the thing with the Japanese is they are West and they're not.

So obviously, they're West in terms of their institutions, the quality of their institutions, in terms of their liberal democracies and capability. But culturally and socially, especially with Abasan, they were very capable in terms of when they deal with especially the queasy type of leaders in the region. To emphasize, we are all Asians. We are brothers. This is a relationship among nations.

folks of the same world and civilization. And it really worked. And they really know how to impress you and take care of you. I'm not saying that hospitality in the West is not impressive, but I'll tell you that Japanese know how to impress a visiting leader, including Duterte, I think, who managed to meet the emperor of Japan last time I checked. Yeah. So they really took care of him. And the term that Duterte used was Japan is closer than brother.

And when Shinzo Abe was assassinated, Duterte released a very heartfelt message. So that has always given Japan...

Kind of a special foothold among the strategic elite in the Philippines of all across the political spectrum. Now, obviously, Mike, there's also the ties that bind, meaning Japan's infrastructure investment. So one of the terms I dubbed throughout the years was pledge trap. Like everyone's worrying about China's debt trap. I said, what debt trap? There's no investment coming in for us to be even in debt, right? This is mumbo jumbo. This is illusory.

That's why you cannot find a single big ticket Chinese infrastructure project in the Philippines today, despite all of the big talks during Duterte's time. But you'll see a lot of Japanese projects, practically all of our modern highways in one way or another have to do something with the Japanese. And as we speak, below me, there's a subway being built, one of the most advanced in the world. And in the coming years, the Philippines will have one of the best subways on earth, thanks to Japan.

So Japan has tremendous amount of economic foothold in the Philippines. And the Asian Development Bank, the biggest development institution in Asia, is headquartered in Manila. Because to remind again people, I know they have these stereotypes about the Philippines, all this poverty porn videos they watch about the Philippines. In the 60s, we were one of the fastest growing economies in the world, among the five fastest growing economies.

in the world to be more accurate about it and one of the highest per capita. So back then, Japan was betting on the Philippines to be the next big thing. It didn't happen for a combination of reasons in the next 50 years, but now Japan is hoping maybe in the next 50 years, Philippines can become the next big thing because we're the fastest growing again right now in the region. And of course, Mike,

One of the things also happening now is this Japan-Philippine-U.S. trilateral. I call it Jafos because I want it to rhyme with AUKUS. And the Jafos has everything to do, obviously, with making sure that this relationship is comprehensive. I don't want the Philippines to just be another Pearl Harbor.

where we get armaments and more ships and bases but you want strategic investments and that's where the Japanese come in but importantly obviously Mike it's also about Taiwan because it's a triangle right Guam Okinawa Northern Philippines Taiwan is right in the middle of that the

The idea is that three of us also have to work to make sure we deter a conflict in Taiwan. So Japan is becoming a very comprehensive, if not the most comprehensive partner for us, just short of a treaty ally, which is what we have with you Americans. Which is exactly how Australia describes Japan, and Japan describes Australia, by the way, and should be how Korea describes Japan, but there are complications. Is Korea, under President Yoon, who's in a little bit of a pickle right now, but under President Yoon, Korea's

tried to adopt more of a proactive Indo-Pacific strategy. Do you see evidence of Korean agency influence, support, or is it still yet to come? My Korea is big to the Philippines, very big. I've been to both North and South Korea, and both of them love to have good relationship with the Philippines. I'm not sure the North Korean one went very well. Let's see with that. But the South Korean one is big. Mike, you mentioned a while ago the Hamilton class warships and all of this.

Actually, the Philippines has a couple of modern frigates and corvettes, depending on how we classify them. They're all from Korea. Our only supersonic fighter jets are all from Korea, upgraded F-A-50s. F-A-50s, yeah. To compete against the American T-50, yeah. So...

Actually, for all of these talks about Japan and US, obviously US provides a lot of armaments here and there. Japan is providing us surveillance capacity. Japan has helped us to build one of the most advanced and capable coast guards in the region, which have been at the forefront of this transparency initiative we can discuss later on as we go into the South China Sea. But

But if you look at the conventional military, the big ticket weapon systems we have, most of them are Koreans and to a certain degree now Indian, because the Indians sold us the Brahmos missile system. And I just clarified with my contacts in New Delhi that the Russians had to allow it because the Brahmos has a Soviet Russian derivative. So at some point, even the Russians were hoping to get into the Philippine defense market because we're not a rich country like Japan, Korea, but we're

We are set to become an upper middle income country and trillion dollar economy in the coming years. So we now have quite some resources to build up our capabilities. I was just talking to the French and European ambassadors a few days ago. They want to sell us submarines. So we are in this phase of acquisition. But to be honest, Mike, there was a new report by Heritage Foundation and they did consultation and I really hammered on the point. We need those F-16 fighters, both for symbolic and for operational reasons. So actually the irony, Mike, is that

At the level of strategic discussion and big picture discussion, it's US, it's Japan, it's Australia. But actually at the granular level of giving us armaments, a lot of that is Korea, India, and Israel, actually. Israel also provides a lot of weapon systems to the Philippines. Yeah, I asked about Korea in part. I knew about the arms sales, but my sense is that diplomatically, the Korea relationship remains largely commercial. These are commercial, direct commercial sales. It's not part of a strategy. And it's not...

often coordinated with the US or Australia or Japan either. So huge impact and potential for Korea. Same with India, not always coordinated. But look, if you're the Philippines, I imagine strategic competition between the US and China is easier to negotiate if you have a lot of other friends and a lot of other sources of kit. Yeah.

And speaking of that, sorry, Mike, I forgot to mention this. We signed a reciprocal access agreement with the Japanese, which is a kind of a VFA light. And we're hoping to have similar ones with South Korea, with the Indians and a couple of European partners could be the French, the Germans, and potentially even the British.

So it's no longer just US treaty ally in Australia, the status of forces agreement. We want to expand that beyond this triangle of key allies. Oh, and not to mention Canada, the Canadians, the nice Americans, as we joke. They also finalizing a reciprocal access agreement. So it's interesting times, Mike. You were telling, you were asking me, right? I mean, are you guys realizing the geopolitics interest? Actually, we are. And that's why we're scrambling to get as many

allies and partners as we can get on board, especially as questions arise about the direction of American foreign policy. Well, how about the closest of all to the North and the most sensitive, Taiwan? Anything going on?

So Mike, I was a Taiwan fellow back in the day. I spent a year or so there. So it's close to my heart. I had the pleasure and privilege of talking to all the top officials out there. I mean, as you know, in Taiwan, it's lonely, right? They cannot meet so many people. So they'll mind lowly academics like us. So I love the access and all of that. What I can say about Taiwan is, Mike, actually things have been really weird in Taiwan throughout the years. I remember from President Ma Ying-jeou to Tsai and all of that.

They will always complain, like, why is the Philippines like that, right? Because especially during Duterte's time. So before that, it was neglect. Like, let's just not talk to the Taiwanese. It's too toxic. We don't want to piss off the Chinese. And then during Duterte's time, it was like bashing Taiwan. It was that bad. They were bashing Taiwan to impress China. So it was horrible. And Taiwanese felt bad. They said, we are hosting hundreds of thousands of your workers. We're so nice to you. We have all these investments. We want to invest more, but you don't want to even have any...

level of decent conversation with us on any issue because we have overlapping claims to you know in the south china's among other things and there was an incident whereby the taiwanese fisherman was murdered although accidentally killed accidentally when the philippine coast guard intervened so we had a very tested relationship but mike the ice has been breaking very fast i mean over on twitter x whatever you want to call it president marcus jr has been having this bromance

With President Lai congratulating and everything, we are hosting American weapon systems in the north of the country. The Typhoon MRC, medium-range capability, could be the big deal, could make a big difference. Because obviously, Mike, I mean, down the road, perhaps the best idea here is to create an arc of missiles from southern Japan to Guam and Manila, sorry, northern Philippines, so that we can kind of counter China's Typhoon MRC.

asymmetric capabilities so that if America has to intervene in any contingencies in Taiwan, we can target those missile systems that will be targeting you. So we are part of this deterrence game. It's very important. And actually, as we speak, this is on the record and this is not confidential. I think at the level of track 1.5, finally, there's some coordination and conversation. But I think both of us know very sure that behind the scenes, there's probably even more than that.

because we are really preparing for the D-Day. So let's talk about the big country that starts with C, not Canada. We've already done that. What's your sense of the state of play in the hotspots, second time I'm talking about this,

Scarborough Shoal, I know you write for Greg Poling and the Asian Maritime Transparency Institute sometimes, but what's your sense? Is it level of Chinese pressure at a plateau? Is there more intense activity to come? Where do you think we are on those two pretty dangerous points of contention?

This is the most troubling times. I've been writing on the South China Sea issue, hundreds of articles throughout the past decade or so. So this is not a snapshot. This is really based on the analysis of how things are evolving over time. And I'm really worried about how things are turning out. I mean, to begin with, I think,

Unfortunately, because of those years under Duterte, when we were very diffident, if not slavish, as one Singaporean told me, he's like, what the heck is wrong with your president? Why is he almost slavish towards the Chinese? And because we didn't have sufficient capabilities for a very long time, I think the Chinese just treat us with contempt. Like, you're not a serious country, right? We're just going to slap you around. Either you're going to have someone like Duterte who will sing to our tune, or if not, we'll make sure that's going to be the case.

And so when Marcos Jr. began to do what he's supposed to do, which is protecting the Philippines' territorial integrity and at the same time, of course, our sovereign rights based on international law, based on our own constitution and understanding what is fair and what is just,

the Chinese are scrambling and the Chinese are scratching their head, like what's going on here? So obviously their fallback option is to say, we're like Ukraine, we're just a proxy of US, we're just the deputy sheriff of US in this part of the world. But at the same time, I think there's also a realization in China that actually the Philippines

maybe are finally serious again. That maybe this is like 70s when the other Marcos was really serious on doing something about it. So we can have a long conversation about domestic politics, but I think on foreign policy, Marcos Jr. has taken after his father. And in fact, speaking of Greg Pauling and AMTI, just weeks after Marcos became the president, I wrote a piece that I said, Marcos Jr. will be more like his father

than Duterte. I mean, Duterte was called Tatay, the father of the nation. I think it comes from an Aztec term because we used to be ruled via Mexico by the Espanoles. So I said, he's going to be more like his own father than father Duterte. And that's exactly how it turned out on foreign policy. And now I'm hoping Prabowo will be more Marcos than Duterte because so far he's more Duterte, but that's a long conversation. But going back to this, I'm talking about pleasant surprises, right?

So I think the Chinese really misread Marcus Jr. Because when Marcus Jr. was running for president, he needed the Dutertes. He wasn't in alliance with them. So he would say all the Duterte stuff. But as soon as it was clear that he's going to win, he began to speak like his father. Like, hey, no, we're not going to be pushovers. And he began to snob the Chinese. And he began to essentially cancel all the BRI, Belt and Road Initiative projects. So the Chinese still didn't get the memo.

They invited him over last January and they gave him nothing. I mean, it was just like a bunch of empty statements. And Marcus got pissed off. Like, these guys are not taking us seriously. You know what? We have a leverage. We have an option. He doubled down on the Henan Defense Cooperation Agreement, gave Americans more access. He doubled down on the Japanese security agreement, et cetera. And most importantly, he launched the Transparency Initiative, whereby Mike...

we essentially live stream all the bullying and illegal activities by China. So that pissed off the Chinese big time over the past two years. I think we're finally getting their grudging respect to a certain degree. But the problem is that it's just too much for China because China thought Marcos would be another, I don't know, Hun Sen they could control and everything. But he's really keep on pushing it and pushing it. And the Philippines are more active and all. And what we're seeing right now, Mike, is China,

you have now an integration of multiple theaters. So China is essentially having a tussle with us on multiple land features in the South China Sea. And once we get some sort of an equilibrium on one, they push us on the other one. It's kind of a balloon, right? You press this. So we have a very fragile equilibrium over the second Thomas Scholl.

And the reason for that is very simple because unlike Scarborough Shoal or Sabina Shoal, some of the other disputed features, people can just Google that. In the second time I was on Mike, we have troops. We have troops. And that makes all the difference.

Because the mutual defense treaty between our two countries covers explicitly, at least per the Trump administration and the Biden administration, because essentially from Nixon to Obama, there was a lot of equivocation. I call it ambiguity rather than strategic ambiguity. I think there was more ambiguity than strategy. But since Pompeo press conference in Philippines in March 1 of 2019 made it clear any attack on our troops,

Public vessels, including Coast Guard or any government-attached vessel and aircraft in the South China Sea, not just Pacific, it's not generic, in the South China Sea, would automatically trigger the Mutual Defense Treaty. So because you have military personnel, a de facto military base there in the Second Tang Dynasty, the United States...

has to be involved and is involved, so much so that they admitted, Lloyd Austin admitted the other week, that there is an American task force for the 2nd Tomasrol, and the Americans in the PACOM has even suggested that they can join us in patrols and resupply to make sure the Chinese will not bully us on the way there, yeah. Yeah, the 2nd Tomasrol, you say it's a base, but it's really just an old LST that's been grounded, and is it Marines, Philippine Marines who were...

living on this thing and resupplying them and getting them out there is hard work and strikes me as one of the most, as you were saying, fragile and dangerous touch points in Asia right now, because the PLA Navy and Chinese Coast Guard and other maritime militia and so forth are being incredibly aggressive in trying to essentially blockade that fort. And the

That is a live fuse, in my view, much more than any other touchpoint in Asia at this point. So it has to be handled with real care. Just one thing on that, Mike. So one reason the Chinese are also really pissed off is they were hoping that rusty, dilapidated, grounded BRP Shermat vessel from Second World War, they were hoping this thing to just literally disappear. And everyone thought it will disappear by some miracle. Yeah.

It survived climate change and all storms and typhoons. And by some volition, we actually fortified it from inside. So it might look horrible on the outside, but the inside, I'm not saying it's Ferrari inside, but definitely it's not as bad as it looks on the outside. And the Chinese are worried that we're not just going to fortify it. So we have fortified it for the next 10 years, meaning it's the structure will hold. But we want to put electronic systems, weapon systems, whatever. And that's what the Chinese are trying to prevent.

So the Chinese are really panicking that we will turn that into a full-fledged base. It might look like, I don't know, Mel Gibson's dystopian movie, but actually it gives us some capability and it gives us an excuse to have the Americans on board and push back the Chinese. So that's why the second international is very worrying. But what happens, Mike, is every time we have some sort of understanding with China, because Chinese...

are also risk-calculating people. I always say they're not Russians, right? Putin's Russia is a different beast. I always tell my friends, people put them in the same basket. The Chinese are far more sophisticated and nuanced. I'll give it to them, despite everything that is happening there. But what they do is that they pressure in the other land features.

So they always want to show that they have the upper hand and they have the preponderance of force. So in the second time, maybe we have won this round, but on other areas, we're feeling pressure. And the Chinese are also pressuring us in the South China Sea so that we don't get involved on Taiwan.

or as what Defense Secretary Du Bois Chou said, the Taiwan linkage. So clearly, even in the Philippines, we recognize that when China looks at us, they don't look at us as this pesky annoyance in the South China Sea. They look at us as actually a potentially dangerous

which may give Americans and American weapon systems a lot of positioning vis-a-vis the Taiwan question. So sometimes we feel they're pressuring us in the South Chinese Sea so that we get scared to get more involved in the Taiwan issue. And I said, let's jujitsu this. Let's reverse it. Let's sell the Chinese. The more you bully us in the South Chinese Sea, the more high marks MRCs are going to end up in the North. So suddenly you have this very new game that we never had in the Philippines. You can see it.

even if the evidence isn't in black and white, that the Chinese strategy is to put the US and US friends and allies on the back foot. And just what you're describing in the South China Sea is happening in the Pacific Islands. The PLA's interest in submarine bases and military bases in the Pacific Islands is largely about containing Australia.

and pulling the string of pearls in the Indian Ocean is, in my view, a lot of that's about keeping the fifth flea occupied and worried about the Indian Ocean. It's a strategy that I think goes back to the Chinese experience with the 95-96 Taiwan crisis, which doesn't take a lot of ships, doesn't take a lot of military assets to backfoot American assets and American friends and allies and pull everyone away from the Taiwan. But what the government of the Philippines is doing is

with Secretary Thomas Scholl is building that capability, but it's also demonstrating willpower. And that's really important. How do the domestic politics of this look? Are the Dutertes waiting in the wings to kind of follow Marcus and go back to the softer line on China? The story of a lot of countries in Asia, especially the democracies, is the party on the left often is a little more sympathetic to the Chinese because they're less sympathetic to the U.S., frankly.

The Chinese activities, which are unrelenting, have created bipartisan consensus about the nature of the China challenge. That's what happened in Korea.

Over the last few years, certainly Australia, Japan was there. Japan's been there for 2000 years. And even in the US, is this what's happening in the Philippines? Is the Chinese activity creating such a bipartisan consensus about the nature of the challenge, the importance of the US and other partners that China has no room to sort of split the Philippines politically, engage in elite capture and get one side of politics on their side? Or should we still be watching that very carefully? Well,

Now we're talking. This is the exciting part, I would say. I'm trying to keep you out of trouble. So say whatever you can say. No, no, no, no. I think I'm enough in trouble. So I might as well double down. I mean, first of all, I would say, again, starting with the whole Trotsky thing, right? The Philippines is in the middle of a two-level Cold War. One is this US-China competition, but the other one is Duterte versus Marcos showdown. I mean, as we speak,

There are investigations against the vice president, Sara Duterte, the daughter of the former president, for openly threatening to assassinate the president. I mean, I think we compete with South Korea in terms of the craziest political situation, although they're more hostile to their ex-presidents. Our ex-presidents get harassed and all, but few of them end in jail or stay in jail for long. But that's the difference with Korea. So good luck with Yun. But going back to the Philippines, the Dutertes are really sui generis, I would say, Mike. You're absolutely correct.

It's not only bipartisan. I mean, the Philippines is probably the most anti-Chinese public anywhere in the region, right? Like you're talking about 90% disapproval of China or distrust. It's hard to match. I think the Vietnamese are our only real competition on this in terms of public opinion, genuine public opinion.

In terms of the political elite, I mean, obviously the armed forces of the Philippines, I've done surveys with them. Some of them I've released to the public. They were open to more communication, but they still see China as the number one strategic threat to the Philippines. Even more so because now we're no longer focused on insurgencies and can really look at the serious issues, which is maritime and territorial integrity. And then if you go to the political elite, of course, elite capture is always a challenge.

especially in Latin American style democracies like the Philippines. My goodness. But just to tell you how powerful the effect of the military, the media, obviously, which is also very critical of China for all good reasons, and the public opinion, the former political affairs secretary of Duterte, right?

I mean, this is like the conciliary of Duterte. He's running for Senate right now and he's positioning himself, I'm talking about Senator Tolentino, for instance, as the defender of the South China Sea and the tough anti-China guy. Even some of Duterte's own guys, sometimes very close to him, some of them of Chinese Filipino descent are talking tough on China suddenly.

No offense to our defense secretary, but he used to be very close friends of Duterte's back in the day and wanted to be the running mate of Sarah Duterte if she wanted to run for the president, which she did. Now he's suddenly the man who's saying... Actually, sometimes I'm wondering, you're not the defense secretary. You're not the foreign affairs secretary. He says, there's no point in talking to Chinese. So what's happening, Mike, is suddenly everyone is discovering the anti-China warrior in them, which tells you this is the political reality. Now,

Does that mean that we should just be complacent? Of course not. If the conversation in the US was Trump-proofing, we have to do Duterte-proofing, right? Because Duterte is still a breath away from the presidency. Now, I don't think Sarah Duterte, the daughter, will be as, quote unquote, bad as the father, but

But I think corruption is always an issue in the Philippines, that even though outwardly our politicians will be tough on the West Philippines or South China Sea issues, there's always concerns about infiltration, sabotage. And actually, Mike, we are heading also into an election season in the Philippines. And one of our worries is, and good friends in ASPI, among others, have done research on this, is AI-generated disinformation backed by Chinese-based elements.

targeting no less than the president of the Philippines. Deep fakes, cheap fakes, all sorts of stuff. A lot of these trolls have been attacking me throughout the years during Duterte time, are now attacking us again now, but from outside the government and with coordination with foreign powers. In fact, Mike, there's a suspicion that even Russians may have been involved at some point, either in training or getting directly involved. So we may have some Macedonian friends trolling me, apparently. I mean, we don't know what's going on. So the Philippines is at the front line also of disinformation war.

warfare, right? We are still a ground zero for that, as Maria Ressa, our good journalist, has put it. So

It's not only geopolitics, unfortunately, Mike, also this very ugly hybrid warfare challenge that is also staring us. So we need to learn from Australia. We need to learn from Taiwan in terms of building resilience and the right kind of legislations that preserve our basic freedoms, but at the same time makes us resilient and gritty in face of Chinese disinformation. And I think the term we all use now is sharp power. So sharp power is a serious threat to the Philippines. So this is just...

An incredibly rich conversation. And the Philippines absolutely are on the front lines, deserve all the support the US, Japan, Australia, Canada, Korea can give. And ASEAN, we haven't even talked about ASEAN, which in itself is a bit of a reveal. I think you got the message. I didn't even bother to answer that. ASEAN has an important role, but on these really hard security questions, it's just not. It's not made for that. Let's just be clear. ASEAN was not made to constrain superpowers.

And yeah, as one Singaporean fan of ours put it, Ozian, stop talking about Ozian as a thoroughbred. It's not a thoroughbred. It's a cow. So we could go on for hours and I think people would stick with us. But what can people look to? I know you do a lot for AMTI at CSIS. Where else can people follow your work and continue learning from you the way we have just now?

Yeah, so obviously a couple of podcasts, my own podcast. We have also another podcast with the European Parliament, ASEAN Relations, called The Bridge. I have my own podcast, The Deep Dive. I write regularly for Nikkei Asia, South China Morning Post, all the major Asian dailies that focus on regional issues. So if you want a more nuanced regional issues, you can also look at that. In addition to stuff that we usually do with our think tanks and media friends in the United States. I'm finalizing the revision of a book I worked on during the pandemic, but so much has been happening over the past years.

It's about the 50 shades of hedging in Southeast Asia. So how five key ASEAN countries, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, and Singapore have been coping with the rise of China and the new Cold War. So I have to revise because with Trump coming in and Ukraine and Gaza, I had to do some revisions, but I hope to finish that. And it's with Melbourne University Press. So God willing.

I can finalize the revisions sooner than later so that we can get that book out. So yeah, it's 50 Shades of Hedging. I don't know. Hopefully they'll allow that to be the title. I don't know about the censorship loss there, but that's my point. We are really doing our best to cope with great power competition. Singaporeans always say we don't want to make choices, but as I said, not making a choice is a choice in itself and you have to justify that. You have to justify that by capability, by strategic thinking, and also by some serious investment in your defense and foreign policy.

Richard, hi, Darian. Outstanding. Next time, we'll either do this over a beer or the dojo with SWORD and Taekwondo. But great having you on. Thanks so much. Pleasure, Mike. For more on strategy and the Asia program's work, visit the CSIS website at csis.org and click on the Asia program page. And for more on the U.S. Studies Center in Sydney, please visit ussc.edu.au.