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Reuters
By Karen Lema and Martin Petty
MANILA, Nov. 19 (Reuters) – Two years after Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte announced a divorce from his former ally, the United States, in exchange for privileged trade relations with China, he did not a lot to do in that sense.
Duterte left Beijing in 2016 with $ 24 billion in Chinese loans and pledges of investment for its ambitious infrastructure rehabilitation project, a few weeks after declaring that the Philippines was treated like a dog by Washington and that it was not a big deal. they would be more comfortable with China.
When Xi Jinping travels to the Philippines this week, Duterte will need the Chinese president to put his money where he is and help him justify his geopolitical concessions to a historical rival, according to defense and security analyst Richard Heydarian. in Manila.
"Otherwise, we can certainly conclude that rhetoric has little to say and that the Philippines was taken for a ride," Heydarian said.
"Duterte's naivety with China has been a strategic blow for China, no doubt about it."
Philippine Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno said it would be unreasonable to expect all Chinese promises to be honored after only two years, but officials hoped that Xi's intervention would after his visit could help him.
"We are very optimistic that this will, their head of state, will put pressure on their bureaucracy to speed up the process," he said last week.
Duterte's "Build, Build, Build" infrastructure program, the centerpiece of its economic strategy, concerns 75 flagship projects, about half of which are for Chinese loans, grants or investments.
However, according to public documents published by the Philippine government and published by Reuters, only three of them – two bridges and an irrigation facility with a combined value of $ 167 million – have already was started.
The rest, consisting of three rail projects, three highways and nine bridges, is at different levels of planning and budgeting, or is waiting for the Chinese government's approval for financing or appointing Chinese contractors.
& # 39; POSITIVE RESULTS & # 39;
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said major projects approved by both sides "are proceeding smoothly and continue to produce positive results". China wants to boost trade and investment and "promote the early start of building even more agreed projects," the ministry said in a statement to Reuters.
According to Philippine statistical authorities, Chinese investment in the Philippines in the first half of this year was only $ 33 million, about 40 percent of that of the United States and about one-seventh that of Japan, following a similar trend in the United States. Previous year.
Trade between China and the Philippines has intensified considerably, but the data mainly suggest that China is favorable.
Chinese exports to the Philippines increased by 26% in the first nine months of 2017 compared to the same period last year, exceeding imports from Manila by 9.8%.
Net foreign direct investment from China, however, reached $ 181 million in the first eight months of this year, up from $ 28.8 million in 2017, according to the central bank of the Philippines.
PRESSURE NEEDED
Duterte praised China praise and confessed his "love" for Xi. He even joked his country in Beijing as a "province of China".
Many ordinary Filipinos as well as international lawyers and diplomats are outraged by Duterte's refusal to raise even with China the ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) 2016 which ruled in favor of the Philippines and invalidated the Beijing's claim for most of the South China Sea.
Instead, Duterte is seeking an agreement with China to jointly explore Reed Bank's offshore gas in the resource-rich and strategic waterway. Some lawmakers fear that this amounts to recognizing Beijing's claim to a site that, according to the PCA's decision, asserted that China had no sovereign rights over international law.
Mr. Duterte also objected to the fact that the Southeast Asian countries unite against the militarization of China. At a regional summit last week, he warned against friction, as the South China Sea was "now in their hands (of China)".
Heydarian said that if Duterte was unable to show an economic dividend from his Chinese portfolio, it could weaken it before the mid-term elections of 2019, which could determine the success or failure of his presidency .
In order to have a chance to make his political agenda a reality, Duterte needs his allies to command a majority in Congress and the Senate to ensure the adoption of key legislation allowing the implementation of reforms aimed at generating to attract investment and create high quality jobs.
"If, after Xi Jinping's visit, China still does not want to invest in the Philippines, if China's militarization and recovery continue unabated, you will get a situation in which Duterte will be under extreme pressure", -he declares.
"The opposition will use that to refer to Duterte and his allies as Chinese lackeys."
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