Daniel Dublin

AB Foreign Service – FS 302

International Political Economy
Jumel G. Estrañero
March 5, 2018

US-RP-PRC Political and Economic Relationships

During the administrations before President Rodrigo R. Duterte, the Philippines have
maintained good relationship with the US. The Philippines always receive economic and
political support from the US and became dependent to the US government. From military bases,
equipments to economic business investments, the US-RP became stronger especially during the
President Noynoy Aquino Administration. But this relationship became pale when President
Rodrigo Duterte became the leader of the Philippines and chose to establish a stronger
relationship with People’s Republic of China and lessen the dependency of Philippines to US.
President Duterte wanted to maintain peace and good relationship with China prior to its territory
in the South China Sea. We all know how strong the military power of China is and also know
that the Philippines can’t match the China’s military strength yet so the President maybe
establish good friendship to China to avoid war conflict in case the tension of island-grabbing
became worse. In US, they have shown interests in the islands that they have started to move
again to have might give helping hands with the Philippines. If the China decided to attack the
Philippine naval ships that surrounds in the South China Sea, the Philippines might appeal the
1951 Philippine-US Mutual Defense Treaty to have military support from the US but if the US
did not counterattack with China because of unreadiness to have military confrontation with
them, then it might cause World War III since the two powerful countries with strong military
power have made tension.

With regards to the relationship of Philippines with Japan, we all know that the Filipinos
have experienced the bloody history with the hands of Japan but in today’s time, we have
maintained a good relationship with Japan. Even though the Japan is a small country, it is one of
the top powerful countries in the world with economic and military power. And lately, the Japan
has given some military equipments and vehicles to the Philippine military groups to be able to
have future weapons in case there will be future conflicts.

In the next 10 years, the Philippines will experience tough times with China because Xi
Jinping’s rule will be extended until 2023 and Xi Jinping has changed the China drastically and
he really wants to fight for the PRC’s right to the South China Sea to fully strengthen the China’s
economic and military power. The issues regarding the South China Sea if not yet settled, I think
it will be worse since there are many contradictions and hindrance to the settlement of the
decision with the island especially that many countries saw huge advantages if they got the
island’s control. The Philippines will also face difficulty to avoid the possibility of World War
III since the Philippines is involved with two superpower countries that have a strong military
power.

I recommend to the Philippines especially to the government to fully try their best to
maintain peace and friendship with PRC and US as well as try their best to successfully gain the
power to own the islands in the Spratly archipelago. The Philippines should not be bias when it
comes to having a stronger relationship with countries especially with PRC and US because our
military power is really far from these two’s and we only gain support from these two
superpower countries and also from other countries like South Korea and Japan. Lastly, I
recommend to the Philippines to make future plans and blueprints if the situation became worse
so that the Philippines will not fall apart when future conflicts will happen.