Those who play with fire will perish by it.

Thus said China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs shortly after United States (US) House Speaker Nancy Pelosi landed in Taiwan. Pelosi, who is the highest-ranking US official to visit Taiwan in more than a generation, touted her visit as a “defense of democracy against autocracy.”

Beijing, undaunted and outraged, stayed true to its warning by holding live military drills and flying fighter jets over Taiwan airspace, much to intimidate the self-governing island. At least 21 warships and 27 jets were reported to have entered Taiwan territory in the days leading to Pelosi’s tour.

A few days after Pelosi’s visit, the US top diplomat, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, embarked on a tour to coincide with a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Cambodia, and an official visit to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. days later. While Blinken’s tour had been planned ahead, so was Pelosi’s—it was not a coincidence that two top US officials visited the region in a matter of days.

The instability in the north of the country is not an isolated one nor will it be the last one, as Washington seeks to strengthen its hold over its so-called “friends, partners, and allies” in Asia to stave off Beijing’s growing influence.

Taiwan is just a proxy in the China-US race for economic and global supremacy. The US, on one hand, seeks to rebuild its relations with Southeast Asian nations amid China’s military and economic dominance in the region. In that way, Washington will have a stronger influence over Asian nations as it negotiates various agreements, the most significant of which is the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. This trade pact seeks to liberalize the exchange of goods among the US and Pacific Rim nations, including most of Southeast Asia.

China, on the other hand, wants to cozy up to its neighbors in an effort to build its hegemony. Beijing wants to secure its interests in the region through the Belt and Road Initiative, whose projects are funded through the Export-Import Bank of China and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank—institutions that seek to rival the West’s World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

Expectedly, the world’s two largest economies seek to put the Philippines under their sphere of influence. China aims to do this by footing the bill for the government’s programs–mostly infrastructure development–while the US coaxes Manila through arms sales and various defense cooperation agreements. For the Philippine government, keeping those ties means maintaining a code of silence and strict neutrality in dealing with the US and China.

The Marcos administration, for instance, has been ambiguous in its response to the Taiwan crisis. In usual diplomatic posturing, the Department of Foreign Affairs simply called for dialogue and diplomacy to prevail. But the administration is downright wrong in sustaining the country’s prevailing foreign policy of being passive in incidents that involve the US and China, just so the country can maintain being a “friend to all and an enemy to none,” in the words of former President Rodrigo Duterte.

Marcos’s notion of an independent foreign policy is not just warped but is also fictitious. An independent foreign policy is not having a hands-off approach to international events. Rather, it entails taking on a proactive and multilateral stance on regional cooperation and cutting dependence on large economies like the US and China.

The calls for de-escalation of tensions in the region should start from the region itself. After all, any conflict—be it a trade war, blockade, or embargo—could easily spill over to ASEAN countries. For the Philippines, in particular, there are some 200,000 Filipino workers in Taiwan who could get in harm’s way should the situation escalate.

A test of such a commitment to diplomacy could start with the ASEAN, which must express its support for the Taiwanese people’s right to self-determination and autonomy. While largely symbolic, a tough rebuke could signal that any unwarranted intervention in regional affairs will be strongly dealt with. In that way, the bloc and its member countries are being proactive in conveying their interest in preserving regional stability.

A strong statement of condemnation of the actions of both the US and China could work in the short term, but long-term workarounds require bolder actions, especially in our domestic policies. This means slowly pivoting away from and ending onerous agreements with these two countries.

The Kaliwa Dam, for example, is a major item of China-funded infrastructure. Aside from the harm it poses to the nearby community, the mega dam is also disastrously disadvantageous to the government. The P10.2 billion funding will be paid in 20 years, with 2 percent interest annually–significantly higher than the loans offered by Japan and Korea, which peg an interest rate of less than a quarter of a percent. If the country fails to pay up, China could easily take over the facility and its resources.

Beijing’s false promises were willfully entered by the Philippine government at the expense of Filipino fisherfolk in the West Philippine Sea who had to contend with the illegal incursions of the Chinese Coast Guard; local merchants who were put on the brink of collapse due to the influx of smuggled goods from China; and the future generation of Filipinos who will pay and bear the brunt of China loans.

Complicit, too, is the US government, which has, for so long, bankrolled the government’s murderous policies. It is hypocritical of the US to preach a gospel of liberty and democracy when it has colluded with the current and previous administrations’ counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, and anti-narcotics programs. Large US conglomerates have flocked the country, too, to take advantage of our cheap labor and predominantly anti-worker policies.

Ultimately, it is the Filipino people who perish from the government’s attempt at playing with fire by serving two imperial powers at the same time.

We do not advocate for a protectionist and isolationist outlook. We can—and should—maintain amicable, equal, and mutually beneficial relationships with our neighbors. But in these fraught times, our foreign policy must be reoriented toward achieving economic self-sufficiency, by building robust industries, and the capability for self-defense. An independent foreign policy is inherently a strong and progressive domestic policy.

Whether or not the country will be implicated in the cross-strait tension might very well depend on how dialogue and diplomacy will prevail. But what matters, in the long run, is not our assertions on the diplomatic stage. It will be our assertion of independence and sovereignty by abrogating all skewed relations–decisions that we will clamor for and determine on the home front. ●