Three strikes; no wonder the US is out. And there's even a fourth strike, embedded in Duterte's promise that he will soon end military cooperation with the US, despite the opposition of part of the Filipino armed forces.
Watch the First Island Chain
The build-up had already been dramatic enough. On the eve of his meeting with Xi, talking to members of the Filipino community in Beijing, Duterte said, "it's time to say goodbye to the US; I will not ask but if they (the Chinese) offer and if they'll ask me, do you need this aid? [I will say] Of course, we are very poor."
Then the clincher; "I will not go to America anymore ... We will just be insulted there."
The US was the colonial power in the Philippines from 1899 to 1942. Hollywood permeates the collective unconscious. English is the lingua franca -- side by side with tagalog. But the tentacles of Uncle Sam's protection racket are not exactly welcomed. Two of the largest components of the US Empire of Bases were located for decades in the Philippines; Clark Air Force Base and Subic Bay Naval Base.
Clark, occupying 230 square miles, with 15,000 people, was busy to death during the Vietnam War -- the main hub for men and hardware in and out of Saigon. Then it turned into one of those Pentagon forward operating HQs. Subic, occupying 260 square miles, was as busy as Clark. It was the forward operating base for the US 7th Fleet.
Already in 1987, before the end of the Cold War, the RAND corporation was alarmed by the loss of both bases; that would be devastating for regional security. Devastating in the -- mythical -- sense of defending the interests of ASEAN and the security of the sea-lanes .
Translation; the Pentagon and the US Navy would lose a key instrument of pressure over ASEAN, as protecting the security of the sea-lanes was always the key justification for those bases.
And lose they eventually did; Clark was closed down in November 1991, and Subic in November 1992.
It took years for China to sense an opening -- and profit from it; after all during the 1990s and the early 2000s, the absolute priority was breakneck speed internal development. But then Beijing did the math; no more US bases opened untold vistas as far as the First Island Chain is concerned.
The First Island Chain is a product, over millennia, of the fabulous tectonic forces of the Ring of Fire; a chain of islands running from southern Japan in the north to Borneo in the south. For Beijing, they work as a sort of shield for the Chinese eastern seaboard; if this chain is secure, Asia is secure.
For all practical purposes, Beijing considers the First Island Chain as a non-negotiable Western Pacific demarcation zone -- ideally with no foreign (as in US) interference. The South China Sea -- which in parts is characterized by Manila as the Western Philippine Sea -- is inside the First Island Chain. So to really secure the First Island Chain, the South China Sea must be free of foreign interference.
And here we are plunged at the heart of arguably the key 21st century hotspot in Asian geopolitics -- the main reason for the Obama administration's pivot to Asia.
The US Navy so far counted on the Philippines to oppose the proverbial, hyped up Chinese aggression in the South China and East China seas. The neocon/neoliberalcon industrial-military complex fury against unhinged Duterte's game-changer is that containing China and ruling over the First Island Chain has been at the core of US naval strategy since the beginning of the Cold War.
Beijing, meanwhile, will have all the time needed to polish its strategic environment. This has nothing to do with freedom of navigation and protecting sea-lanes; everyone needs South China Sea cross-trade. It's all about China -- perhaps within the next 10 years -- being able to deny access to the US Navy in the South China Sea and inside the First Island Chain.
Duterte's game-changing America has lost is just a new salvo in arguably the key 21st century geopolitical thriller. A Supreme Court justice in Manila, for instance, has warned Duterte that, were he to give up sovereignty over the Scarborough Shoal, he could be impeached. That won't happen; Duterte wants loads of Chinese trade and investment, not abdicate from sovereignty. He'd rather be ready to confront being demonized by the hyperpower as much as the late Hugo Chavez was in his heyday.
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