Duterte Shakes Up Relations with US, Shores Them Up with China
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte at a wreath-laying ceremony in observance of National Heroes Day, Monday, Aug. 29, 2016 at the Heroes Cemetery in suburban Taguig city, east of Manila, Philippines.
By Richard Javad Heydarian Assistant professor in political science at De La Salle University, Council on Foreign Relations Read bio
September 2, 2016
The Philippines' new president is cozying up to Beijing and sending mixed messages on existing U.S. troop agreements.
While the world is transfixed by the Duterte administration’s ‘shock and awe’ crackdown on the drug trade, which has drawn global condemnation for its alleged widespread use of extrajudicial killings yet enjoys significant domestic support, the newly-inaugurated President Rodrigo Duterte, a self-described ‘socialist’, is also shaking up Philippine foreign policy. So far, however, under the country’s new firebrand leader, the country has seen more change than continuity in its foreign policy.
Earlier this year, before the presidential campaign formally kicked off, the Philippines was generally regarded as one of the stronger liberal democracies in Asia, as well as a vibrant emerging market and a staunch ally of the United States. The United States and the Philippines are treaty allies, but under the previous Aquino administration, Washington and Manila signed a new bilateral defense pact, and U.S. security assistance to the Philippines rose markedly.
http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2016/09/duterte-shakes-relations-us-shores-them-china/131255/?oref=d-river
