Policy Alert #155 | November 14, 2017

As part of RPI’s special coverage of US President Donald Trump’s first trip to Asia, we now examine the second leg of the tour in Vietnam and the Philippines, overlapping with the 2017 APEC Summit, the US-ASEAN Summit, and East Asia Summit. Both countries are crucial to the resolution of the ongoing maritime disputes in the South China Sea. Since coming to power, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has added an unpredictable element to the political equation while Vietnam’s position has been steadier.

How is the Trump visit affecting thinking in Vietnam and the Philippines on this regional dispute and other bilateral matters?

VIETNAM
President Trump’s visit to Vietnam began with attending APEC Summit before formally meeting with Vietnamese officials in Hanoi. Secretary General of the Communist Party of Vietnam Nyugen Phu Trong expressed his support of President Trump’s visit for promoting bilateral ties between the two nations, while Prime Minister Nyugen Xuan Phuc hailed the success of the loosening of trade restrictions between the two countries.

• Covering the arrival of Chinese President Xi Jinping, The Hanoi Times emphasized the economic ties and cooperative undertakings in sectors such as agriculture, healthcare, and transportation between Vietnam and China. Ahead of the visit, however, the Times highlighted Dr. Nyugen Hong Tao’s recent lecture at a workshop in the United Kingdom regarding territorial disputes in the South China Sea, in which he argued that “Vietnam has legal basis to dismiss any proposal for joint exploration illegally enabling violations to her continental shelf,” an indirect criticism of efforts by China’s activities in the area.
• Viet Nam News, the English news publication by the state-run Vietnam News Agency, highlighted a ceremony in which President Trump and President Tran Dai Quang oversaw the signing of an estimated $12 billion in trade deals. The news agency explained the relationship between Vietnam and the US: “Positive strides have been recorded in bilateral relations in all spheres since the countries established a comprehensive partnership in July 2013 on the basis of respecting each other’s territorial integrity, political regime and development path, for the sake of their own interests and for regional peace, stability and development co-operation.”
• In its coverage of President Trump’s arrival, Tuoi Tre News, the paper for the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union and the most widely-read paper in Vietnam, featured several photos of Vietnamese lining the streets “to welcome” the US president as his motorcade as it passed through Hanoi. Tuoi Tre emphasized that this was the fourth consecutive state visit by a US president since the normalization of ties in 1995.
• Tuoi Tre also noted President Trump’s offer to President Quang to use his negoiating skills in the maritime territorial dispute between Vietnam and China. “If I can help mediate or arbitrate, please let me know… I am a very good mediator,” Trump said.
• Musician and activist Mai Khoi displayed an anti-Trump banner as the US president’s motorcade passed, and was later evicted from her apartment over the disruption. Khoi criticized Trump’s silence on Vietnam’s human rights violations, saying, “His politics, his philosophy, is so different from me and is so harmful, and he doesn’t support the human rights, and he doesn’t care about activists.”
• In an interview with The Diplomat, dissent activist Nyguyen Quang A explained that despite the Vietnamese government’s record of human rights abuses, it is vital for Hanoi and Washington to strengthen their partnership. “We have to resist [China’s] expansion policy, and I think that if Vietnam can have the support of others–the Japanese, Americans–that would be good,” he said.

PHILIPPINES
The Philippines hosted both the US-ASEAN Summit and East Asia Summit back-to-back. At the supposed request of the US President, Philippine President Rodrigo Duerte took to the stage to sing a duet at the ASEAN gala dinner in which he hosted 1,300 attendees. On his meeting with Trump, Duerte explained that Trump had “said something about, ‘You know, you handle it very well…’ I do not want to brag. These are the things that you do not brag about: the [typhoon] Marawi and then the drugs – words of encouragement,” but did not mention the extrajudicial killings occurring as part of Duerte’s “war on drugs,” as “they are not true […] we do not do it.”

In later interviews, President Duerte expressed his disinterest in engaging with China over the South China Sea dispute, saying, “Today China is the number one economic powerhouse, and we have to be friends. The other hotheads would like us to confront China and the rest of the world for so many issues. […] The South China Sea is better left untouched. Nobody can afford to go to war,” and, when recounting his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, “I have stated before and I was not lying, I would not entertain talks about military or anything except that I had to thank Mr. Xi Jinping for the timely and crucial help that he extended to our country when we were fighting the siege of [typhoon] Marawi.”

• Retired diplomat Jaime Bautista urged the government use its chairmanship of ASEAN to assert its award granted under the arbitration case against China. “It is in the interest of the Philippines to mention the arbitration tribunal award and include it as part of the strategic discourse in the [ASEAN] and related summits. The award favors not only the Philippines but Malaysia, Vietnam and other countries that have exclusive economic zones. The issue with respect to the Common Heritage of Mankind and the freedom of navigation affects all countries, especially the major maritime powers in the region and other dialogue partners of [ASEAN].”
• Ahead of the US-ASEAN Summit and East Asia Summit in the Philippines, the Manila Times assessed the government’s hopeful policy outcomes against the shadow of human rights violations in the country. The Times featured interviews from officials at Amnesty International’s branch in the Philippines. “We will be extremely disappointed if Trump does not raise it,” director Jose Noel Olano said of the extrajudicial killings. Amnesty researcher Rachel Chhoa-Howard highlighted other human rights abuses in the region being swept under the rug, “From the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar, to a sweeping crackdown on all forms of dissent in Cambodia to the thousands killed in Philippines, human rights are under siege across Southeast Asia.”
• The Philippine Star similarly featured an interview with Secretary General of human rights NGO Karapatan Cristina Palabay ahead of the visit. Palabay minced no words on the suggestion that President Trump would address human rights issues, “We expect Trump to talk about human rights with such a record? This is a different level of shamelessness, hypocrisy and pretense. The Trump administration is allocating more for the destruction and plunder of nations.”
• Save the Nation head and former undersecretary Antonio “Butch” Valdes was optimistic that although the ASEAN’s initiatives to resolve the maritime territorial disputes between member states and China was “less relevant,” the recent visits and dialogue between US President Trump and Chinese President Xi “may pave the way into improved relations “between the two superpowers and a future resolution of our territorial issues.”
• Philippine Star writer Federico D. Pascual Jr., meanwhile, called for readers to consider the real power dynamic behind the diplomatic displays. “It so happens that the real factor in the power equation in the South China Sea is not Duterte himself, but the Philippines,” due to the island’s’ strategic position, according to Pascual. Given that the US’s real “fear” is “that the mad man toying with nuclear-tipped missiles in Pyongyang might just press the red button and ignite the Last World War,” it is in the US’s best interest to remain allied with the Philippines and maintain its positions in East Asia, he argued.
• Babe Romualdez, another Philippine Star contributor, praised the preparations and Filipino hospitality on display during the respective summits’ ceremonies, and shot at those who criticized the use of resources on such displays. “This milestone event will bring in large returns in terms of tremendous goodwill as we can demonstrate that the country is politically stable, our democratic institutions are very much alive and at work, and that the government is working hard to make the Philippines an attractive investment destination as seen in the ambitious infrastructure agenda of the administration,” Romualdez said.
• Columnist Carmen N. Perdosa had warm words of praise for President Duerte’s initiative that took the country from “being a mere patsy of US foreign policy in the region” to “a leader in the region and carry a heavy responsibility to the strengthening of ASEAN in world affairs.”
• Yen Makabenta, in an editorial for the Manila Times, observed that “[t]he most striking spectacle at the APEC forum this week, is that the United States, by dint of Trump’s policies, is being relegated to the sidelines. Take his decision to withdraw the US from the far-reaching Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). It has not dented one whit [sic] the push for freer trade in the region, especially in Vietnam.” Makabenta continued by assessing the possibility of a new TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) agreement, and talks to establish a larger Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)–both without US involvement.

This supplemental Policy Alert on Vietnam and the Philippines is part of a project at the Rising Powers Initiative exploring the linkages between energy security and maritime strategies in the Indo-Pacific that is supported by the MacArthur Foundation.