Schedule
Nov. 28, 2024 | 4:15–5:45 PM
Room
Rm 2, Center Ballroom
Chair and Moderator
Richard Javad Heydarian
University of the Philippines Diliman
Panel Abstract
The Philippines has stealthily emerged as a middle power in the international system at a time when it is fighting for its territorial integrity and sovereign rights against China’s expansion in the West Philippine Sea (WPS), which pertains to the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone and continental shelf in the South China Sea basin. Skepticisms about its newfound status in the twenty-first century is indeed qualified; it is still far from being a mature “middle power” in the Indo-Pacific region like Japan, Australia, Indonesia, and South Korea and the country’s internal problems and disillusions might translate such status into illusions of grandeur. However, it is a status that should be embraced and improved, not a facade to be ridiculed and neglected, in world affairs. The concept of grand strategy is apt to make sense of its rising status in the international system. Grand strategy refers to the orchestration and utilization of all means available by developing ways to achieve a certain end or political objective. In this regard, the panel seeks to address a core question: what should be the grand strategy of the Philippines as a rising middle power, particularly in the WPS? This will be unpacked through a set of papers focusing on crisis and alliance management, force modernization and development, naval diplomacy, and traditional and non-traditional partnerships for regional networking.
G2.1
Fifty Shades of Hedging: Marcos, Middle Powers, and Navigating Great Power Competition in the West Philippine Sea
Richard Javad Heydarian
University of the Philippines Diliman
Of all the Southeast Asian nations, the Philippines has arguably experienced the wildest swings so far as its South China Sea strategy and, more broadly, foreign policy orientation is concerned. The Philippines’ responses to the maritime disputes have radically shifted over the past decade alone. While President Benigno Aquino III (2010-2016) became the first Asian leader to take China to international courts over maritime disputes by invoking the compulsory arbitration proceedings under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), his immediate successor, Rodrigo Duterte (2016-2022), became the only Asian leader to openly extoll the supposed virtues of being “meek” and “humble” in exchange for the Asian superpower’s “mercy.”
While Aquino actively welcomed the Obama administration’s “Pivot to Asia” policy and encouraged Japan to take a more proactive role in regional security affairs, Duterte contemplated an alliance with China and Russia at the expense of traditional allies. Throughout the post-Cold War period, various Philippine administrations had divergent threat perceptions vis-à-vis China as well as varying degrees of confidence in the reliability of their alliance with the US. Although China steadily expanded its strategic footprint in adjacent waters, wresting control of Philippine-claimed Mischief Reef in the early-1990s, only two contemporary Filipino presidents, namely Fidel Ramos (1992-1998) and Benigno Aquino III, actively pushed back against the Asian superpower through a combination of diplomatic and military countermeasures. Meanwhile, several Filipino presidents, namely Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (2001-2010) and Rodrigo Duterte, did not shy away from dialing down strategic relations with the US, and questioning the viability of the alliance, when it served their domestic political agenda. In fact, both Arroyo and Duterte, two political allies over the years, actively leveraged the so-called “China card” whenever they ran into trouble with the West. Notwithstanding the seeming “Philippine exceptionalism,” however, the Southeast Asian country has been largely engaged in one form of hedging strategy or the other since the end of Cold War. This paper analyzed factors driving the foreign policy of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.—and how the Philippines, as a rising middle power, seeks to balance its relations with superpowers amid the ongoing disputes in the South China Sea, particularly in the West Philippine Sea covering the Southeast Asian nation’s Exclusive Economic and continental shelf.
G2.2
Naval Diplomacy as a Grand Strategic Logic: Galvanizing the Strengths and Recognizing Limits of the Philippines’ Middle Power Rise
Joshua Bernard B. Espeña
University of the Philippines Diliman
The Philippines’ middle power rise shows promise but not without skepticism from observers. To survive and thrive amid geopolitical fluxes, any proper middle power must have a grand strategy. It refers to “the alignment of potentially unlimited aspirations with necessarily limited capabilities” (Gaddis 2018). With the Philippines’ limited capability, unique strategic culture, and interesting geographic position, the paper sought how naval diplomacy can help the Philippines align its necessarily limited capabilities with the potentially unlimited aspirations of a rising middle power. Naval diplomacy refers to “the use of naval and maritime assets as communicative instruments of international power relationships to further the interests of the actors involved” (Rowlands 2019). This paper employed a single-case study design to further the discourse on the grand strategy for the Philippines’ middle power rise. The paper asked a core question: why is naval diplomacy an appropriate linkage for the Philippines to align its goals with its capabilities? It argues that naval diplomacy can galvanize middle power strengths while recognizing limits. The study found that by utilizing naval diplomacy as a grand strategic logic, the Philippines can 1) support the maritime rules-based order; 2) convey a hard bargain to allies and partners to do more for maritime security; 3) monitor diplomatic moods and naval trends in the region; 4) offset particular defense needs to allied and partner navies for a more comprehensive archipelagic security; 5) identify economic requirements to build strategic industries in sustaining naval diplomacy; 6) cultivate strategic culture on maritime-based security thinking; and 7) develop a credible deterrence of denial and punishment to current and future adversaries. It concluded that naval diplomacy as a middle power’s grand strategic logic will allow the Philippines to align its aspirations with its limited yet growing capabilities.
G2.3
In Transition: Continuity and Change in Philippine National Security Policy and Strategy
Mico A. Galang
Pacific Forum
In August 2023, the administration of Philippine President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. released its National Security Policy (NSP). For the third consecutive time, the Philippine national government released such a document—the first was in 2011 under the late President Benigno S. Aquino III, and the second was in 2017 during the Rodrigo R. Duterte presidency. There are differences in the domestic and foreign circumstances around which the three NSPs were released. Indeed, compared to the two previously released documents, the 2023 NSP sets a rather different aspiration for the country compared to its two predecessors: “to become a Middle Power in a multi-polar world.” In this regard, the paper sought to examine how has the Philippine national security policy evolved over the years? In addition, the paper sought to discuss: how has the top leadership and bureaucracy affected the development of the NSPs? And what are the areas of continuity and change in these documents?
G2.4
What Is in a Name? Evaluating Philippine Middle Power Status in the Indo-Pacific through Role Theory
Don McLain Gill
De La Salle University-Manila
The rise of the Indo-Pacific at the forefront of international geopolitical discourse has reinvigorated scholarly debates and discussions on middle powers. This is likely catalyzed by contemporary security dynamics of the region where non-great power states are striving to have a larger say in regional political affairs amidst the overarching power competition between the US and China. The Philippines has gained a prominent place in this discourse given its geopolitical position within the region’s evolving strategic landscape. While authoritative policy and research centers like the Lowy Institute have categorized the Southeast Asian state as a middle power as early as 2018, scholarly publications on Asian middle powers have been far from consistent in identifying the Philippines as one. Much of this inconsistency stems not only from the fluidity of the concept but also from how the evaluators used to define what a middle power is—often relying on either positional or behavioural justifications. Therefore, to contribute to the limitations of traditional middle power conceptualization and to have a more nuanced understanding of the Philippines’ power status in the Indo-Pacific, this paper sought to reevaluate the middle power concept through the incorporation of role theory. Moreover, this paper argues that by emphasizing the relational attributes of a middle power, rather than just the positional and self-conceptualized status, a more holistic and comprehensive understanding may be applied to the Philippines’ role in the Indo-Pacific.