Mr. Trump’s Vietnam and Philippines Visits: How are a “Quasi-Ally” and an Ally Responding?

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.

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.”

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.