From the New York Times (Feb 4):
Philippine Leader Sounds Alarm on China
Interview With President Aquino
President Benigno S. Aquino III of the Philippines called for nations around the world to support his country in resisting China. He also talked about the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan. David Hogsholt for The New York Times
President Benigno
S. Aquino III called on Tuesday for nations around the world to do more to
support the Philippines in
resisting China’s assertive
claims to the seas near his country, drawing a comparison to the West’s failure
to support Czechoslovakia
against Hitler’s demands for Czech land in 1938.
Like
Czechoslovakia, the Philippines faces demands to surrender territory piecemeal
to a much stronger foreign power and needs more robust foreign support for the
rule of international law if it is to resist, President Aquino said in a
90-minute interview in the wood-paneled music room of the presidential palace.
“If we say yes
to something we believe is wrong now, what guarantee is there that the wrong
will not be further exacerbated down the line?” he said. He later added, “At
what point do you say, ‘Enough is enough’? Well, the world has to say it —
remember that the Sudetenland was given in an
attempt to appease Hitler to prevent World War II.”
Mr. Aquino’s
remarks are among the strongest indications yet of alarm among Asian heads of
state about China’s
military buildup and territorial ambitions, and the second time in recent weeks
that an Asian leader has volunteered a comparison to the prelude to world wars.
Japan has been locked in an increasingly tense standoff
with China over uninhabited
islands in the East China Sea, and even South
Korea, which has been quieter about Chinese claims,
expressed alarm last year when Beijing announced
that it had the right to police the skies above a vast area of ocean,
including areas claimed by Japan
and South Korea.
While China’s efforts to claim rocks, shoals and fishing grounds
off the coast of the Philippines
in the South China Sea have been less
high-profile, the Chinese have moved faster there.
The Philippines already appears to have lost
effective control of one of the best-known places of contention, a reef called
Scarborough Shoal, after Philippine forces withdrew during a standoff with China
in 2012. The Philippine forces left as part of an American-mediated deal in
which both sides were to pull back while the dispute was negotiated. Chinese
forces remained, however, and gained control.
In his nearly
four years as president, Mr. Aquino, 53, has exceeded expectations in his
country and the region for what he would be able to accomplish in a nation once
known as the “sick man of Asia.” He was a fairly low-key senator when he was
propelled into the presidency in 2010 by a wave of national sympathy after his
mother, former President Corazon C. Aquino, died the year before.
Political
analysts say that his administration has fought and reduced the corruption that
played a role in holding the Philippines
back. In one practical measure of that change, the country has been able to
pave more roads per 100 million pesos in spending (about $2.2 million) than
before — when funds were lost to corrupt officials and incompetence — finally
addressing an impediment to commerce.
All
of the major credit rating agencies now give the
Philippines an investment grade
rating, though the recent downturn in share prices and currencies here and in
other emerging markets, on fears of further slowing of the Chinese economy,
poses an immediate challenge.
In another
accomplishment, Mr. Aquino’s negotiators concluded a major peace agreement last
month with the main resistance group on Mindanao,
the heavily Muslim southern island. Still, the deal remains something of a
gamble; it is based in good part on the Muslim group’s ability to hold in check
smaller resistance groups, which criticized the pact almost immediately.
Despite
those successes, Mr. Aquino was criticized for the country’s slow initial
response to last year’s devastating typhoon. He said the storm was so powerful
that it overwhelmed the Philippines’
many preparations.
He has also been
less aggressive on land reform — the Aquinos are among the country’s biggest
landowning families — and he has preferred to shift more of the government’s
social spending to poor villages instead. Walden Bello, although a congressman
in the president’s governing coalition, said he was one of many who believe
that “the lack of real progress on land reform is a real reason why poverty
rates have remained” at high levels.
Analysts say the
almost feudal power of some entrenched families, including some with militias,
is a further obstacle to growth. But Mr. Aquino said he was trying to convince
the families that becoming less insular would foster greater prosperity.
Mr. Aquino is
prevented by law from seeking re-election when his six-year term expires in
2016, raising uncertainty about whether his changes will continue.
In the
wide-ranging interview on Tuesday, Mr. Aquino said he thought the Philippines and the United
States were close to a long-delayed deal that would allow
more American troops to rotate through the Philippines, enhancing his
country’s security. But the subject remains controversial among the political
elite in the Philippines,
with memories of the country’s past as an American possession making them wary
of closer military ties.
The
United States is pushing for
the deal to aid in its rebalance to Asia, where it hopes to retain a strong
influence despite China’s
rise.
The Philippines,
he said, is determined not to make similar concessions. “You may have the
might,” he said of China,
“but that does not necessarily make you right.”
