Superpowers are accelerating the collision course in the Indo-Pacific region. 

In the recently concluded trilateral summit of US, Japan, and the Philippines, US President Joe Biden reaffirmed his “ironclad” support for the Philippines amid increasing Chinese attacks on the West Philippine Sea (WPS). As a response, the Chinese Embassy accused the countries of “undermining regional peace and stability.” 

China does not have the moral ascendancy to preach peace and stability. Persistent Chinese incursions and disproportionate offensives on the Philippines’s exclusive economic zone belie Beijing’s claim that the situation in WPS is “generally stable.”

While China intensifies its illegal incursions, the US takes advantage of the situation to advance its interests. The Philippines further plunges into precarity as both imperial powers increasingly escalate their agenda for global dominion.

Beijing’s refusal to recognize the Philippines’s rights exposes its hypocrisy in its declaration of mutual partnerships to achieve “democratic multilateralism.” China’s aggression serves its ends for a new world order under its reign: enacting aggressive policies of economic coercion and development of projects under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which then President Rodrigo Duterte joined in 2018. 

BRI’s ambitious infrastructure program seeks to span more than 140 countries, seen as a trap to lure the developing world toward giving China greater power to exert influence over them through loans and pledges. The Duterte administration, by financing half of its water resource infrastructure and other projects through Chinese funding, demonstrated how the quest for investments can lead to relinquishing one's sovereignty.

Amid China’s expansion, the US retaliates to wrestle dominance in the Indo-Pacific region by forging more agreements and alliances. The US-Japan-Philippines trilateral summit highlighted the improvement of the military and economic facets of countries in the Indo-Pacific region by recognizing the Philippines’s strategic role in the WPS and Taiwan Strait conflict given its geographical and political position.

By encircling China, the US is provoking its rival to spur the conflict. In doing so, the US can claim a defensive position in the war it is brewing, bolster its arms sales, and provide the pretext for gaining control of the Indo-Pacific region.

But contrary to the promise of facilitating peace, the US further imperils the Philippines by dragging it into a conflict that the US itself escalated. Biden has repeatedly assured the Philippines, that if necessary, it will invoke the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty—the agreement requiring both to aid each other if another nation attacks them. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has also expanded sites the US military may access under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement.

The Philippines cannot depend on any superpower to liberate itself from the scourge of China’s aggression. Neither American nor Chinese dependence worked in the past and is unlikely to change as both remain hellbent on securing domination.

The Philippines getting dragged into the intensifying clash of these superpowers highlights the imperative of reigniting the Non-Aligned Movement through a strategic autonomy approach. It necessitates strengthening one’s domestic economy and defense posture to be on a level playing field in negotiations, while engaging with coalitions driven by the mutual pursuit of development.

Instead of depending on superpowers like the US, Marcos may exhaust other avenues by constantly bringing up the WPS issue at multilateral bodies, like the United Nations. Doing so provides an integral opportunity to assert our rightful claims and minimize Beijing’s influence, which forms the basis of its global expansionary project.

Such a pivot may also pave the way for a greater alliance among the non-aligned world to establish regional cooperation with claimants in disputed territories, like Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaysia. This strengthened alliance, founded on principles of peaceful coexistence, will create the rising tides of resistance that can lift all boats in the region.

A collision course needs not to hasten—not now, not ever. Marcos only has to steer away from the country’s current alignments, forge independent foreign relations, and put its national interests above all else. ●