Manolo Quezon is #TheExplainer Newsletter — Issue #31 The East is Red Again
This weekend marks 10 years since I posted photos from the time I was part of then-President Benigno S. Aquino III’s delegation to Beijing. This anniversary comes at the heels of news of momentous-sounding changes brewing in the People’s Republic of China.
Here is my photo travelogue:
The President’s State Visit to the People’s Republic of China — Manuel L. Quezon III
www.quezon.ph
Photos from some of the activities during President’s State Visit to the People’s Republic of China. Day 1: The President’s arrival in Beijing in evening. See the President’s Departure Statement….
A couple of years later, I wrote about that visit and some observations I had.
Spot.ph Commentary: Enter the Dragon — Manuel L. Quezon III — www.quezon.ph
China has mastered the art of power projection. by Manuel L. Quezon III Oct 21, 2016
Incidentally, you can listen to an audio long read version of the article above:
Manolo Quezon is #TheExplainer Podcast: Episode 5 Enter the Dragon — anchor.fm
This is Audio Long Read №4. Originally published in Spot.PH on October 21, 2016 as “Enter the Dragon.” Written on the occasion of President Rodrigo Duterte’s state visit to the People’s Republic of China, the generosity and friendliness of his reception was in marked contrast to the modest, stiff, and cold reception President Benigno S. Aquino received in 2011. I was part of his official delegation at the time. This is the third and last of three Audio Long Reads to mark the 40th day since the passing of former President Benigno S. Aquino III.
China’s 21st Century Vision
The #InquirerBriefing, October 26, 2016 garnered Honorable Mention from #SOPAwards2017. In it, we tried to present a multiplicity of information: the political, economic, and security visions for China by its top leadership.
The insights gained from the above have informed some of my writings on Philippine-China relations.
The three milestones of China | Inquirer Opinion — opinion.inquirer.net
Even though Hong Kong’s economic share in China’s economy has shrunk compared to the time it was handed over back to China by Great Britain, it continues to play a vital role because of a legacy of colonialism — its legal system, which remains Western in orientation and practice. This gives foreigners the confidence to set up shop there and engage the economy in a predictable manner: The city is where foreign funds are raised for IPOs for Chinese firms. But the existence of the Hong Kong legal system stands as a continuing reproach to what passes for a justice system in the mainland, with its show trials. And as the insistence on individual rights spills over into the streets, it also serves as an insurmountable counterpoint to Beijing’s control over the organs of government in Hong Kong — a fact that subverts Beijing’s efforts to entice Taiwan to reincorporate itself into China.
Because our institutions have a highly underdeveloped — in fact, practically undeveloped — analytical competence when it comes to China, it makes our government (whatever administration is in place) highly incompetent in figuring out how to approach relations with China. The end result is to lurch from one extreme to another — from incautious belligerence to carefree bootlicking — without a larger consensus to temper things, because no consensus exists either in officialdom or among the public.
As it is, the ongoing great gamble on China has collided with China’s own cautiousness when it comes to making commitments to unreliable Filipinos, while what it really wants — support in its crackdown on the drain on national wealth the Pogos (Philippine offshore gaming operators) represent — is unacceptable to the sectors making money, formally or not, from their presence here.
A new Era in China
The above comes back into focus with recent events. The summary by the Financial Times boils it down best:
Xi Jinping is aiming to redraw China’s social contract
The blizzard of new regulations, speeches and policies emanating from China in recent weeks appears motivated by what Beijing calls “changes unseen in a century”. That is code for the rise of China and the relative decline of US-led western power. The instability that such a shift in the global order may trigger has prompted Beijing to strengthen itself pre-emptively, by addressing internal and external vulnerabilities. At times, the rhetoric has sounded like a blast from China’s revolutionary past. This week, for instance, Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian leader, advocated “struggle” in a speech carried in the People’s Daily newspaper. “It is unrealistic to expect a peaceful life without struggle,” he said. “We must uphold China’s sovereignty, security and development interests with unprecedented determination.” The aim appears to be to advance several objectives at once, some of which overlap, and some of which do not. In advocating “common prosperity”, Beijing is signalling a campaign against social inequality. In stressing “dual circulation”, it is seeking to reduce reliance on foreign markets. In promoting family values it is, in part, hoping that women will opt to have more babies. By cracking down on after-school tuition and video games, it wants to alleviate the financial and emotional stress on families.
This article bears close reading:
Profound Transformations — China Media Project — chinamediaproject.org
It is likely that for months if not years to come, observers of Chinese history and current affairs will weigh the significance of an article making the rounds on China’s internet this past Sunday. Appearing on scores of official Party-state media websites and commercial internet portals, the article is penned by a virtually unknown blogger named Li Guangman (李光满), who claims that revolution is in the air in China, with profound transformations to be felt by all…
The article opens with a summary of recent moves by the Chinese authorities to bring the entertainment industry in check and curb the influence of celebrities, coming on top of the suspension last year of the blockbuster IPO of China’s Ant Group, the fining of Alibaba, and the crackdown on “fandom culture” (饭圈文化). All of these moves have come amid intensified calls by Xi Jinping, and in the state media, for the country to pursue a renewed form of “common prosperity,” or gongtong fuyu (共同富裕).
Li also mentions recent actions taken directly against music composer Gao Xiaosong (高晓松) and the actress Zhao Wei (赵薇), noting with seeming glee that both have been yanked from major internet portal sites, and that “Zhao Wei’s name has been expunged from the [online video platform] iQiyi.”
The red has returned, the heroes have returned, and the grit and valor has returned.
Li Guangman
Such punitive actions, which have now set the internet and entertainment industries trembling, are apparently what Li means by “grit and valor,” or xuexing (血性), a term that references an attitude of toughness and combativeness that has been actively encouraged within the People’s Liberation Army since 2013. “[All] of this tells us,” Li says, summing up the zeitgeist, “that China is undergoing a major change. From the economic sphere to the financial sphere, from the cultural sphere to the political sphere, a profound transformation is underway — or, one might say, a profound revolution.”
Additional item of interfest:
Xi Jinping’s graft busters are probing Jack Ma’s home city, and a rising star of Xi’s Zhejiang clan — SupChina — supchina.com
Zhejiang is the economic powerhouse that set the groundwork for the rise of Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Now the purge of the Party chief of Hangzhou, a business center of the province and home to Alibaba, has sent a chill across the country’s political and business elites. Lizzi Lee explains why.
Three case studies in Philippine-China relations
I. Pogos
I have long argued that often overlooked in looking at Beijing-Manila relations, is how the question of POGOs marks the intersection of foreign and domestic politics; that the limits of Beijing’s influence can be seen in how Manila has not exactly cooperated fully with it as far as these outifts are concerned; how they, in turn, have propped up the upper and middle classes and by so doing play a role in local politics.
The Chinese among us, May 02, 2018:
Essentially a China-watching sport is emerging, where people in online discussion groups take to enumerating buildings and
facilities they claim are filled with Chinese nationals. From the reclamation area in Manila and Pasay, to Makati and Pasig, quite a few people, it seems, have observed entire floors filled with mysterious Chinese workers who have their own shuttles, who are plentiful enough to support restaurants that don’t even bother themselves with selling food to the general public, who are shuttled to their places of work and home again. But overall, most, if not all, seem to be involved in some sort of gambling enterprise, usually described as the online kind. This hardly suggests that they are taking away jobs from Filipinos and which can actually be argued as providing healthy incomes to Filipino land owners.
In terms of tourism, the stories bandied about are perhaps a little more troubling though no different, really, from the previous ethnic tourism booms of the past, whether Japanese or Korean. A governor from the south in late 2016 told me that they were registering a big spike in Chinese tourist arrivals, but even he was puzzled because no local businesses seemed to be benefiting from it: The tourists arrived and were never seen until they left, leading to the suspicion that in between, they stayed in purely Chinese-owned and -controlled facilities and vehicles.
Is the golden goose cooked?, September 04, 2019:
The property market was hoping for news that would arrest, if not reverse, seven weeks of straight decline (the Philippine Stock Exchange Property index fell almost 10 percent) as a result of these official Chinese statements, and fear of an outright demand from Xi for Manila to start cracking down on Pogos. Panelo’s interpretation wasn’t reassuring, which is why Dominguez had to weigh in. Might it have made more sense to leave it to the Department of Foreign Affairs?
But that would only result in rehashing the repeated requests of Xi for the Philippines to crack down on Pogos. The secretary of foreign affairs last May already said Xi had asked the President for a crackdown, and DFA’s diplomats know Xi’s “comment” in Beijing was a reiteration from the very top of what the foreign ministry had already, more aggressively, said.
The Philippine position, such as it is, is to drag its feet, and keep enjoying what Beijing has categorically declared as illegal — indeed, criminal — sources of cash.
The Pogo peril, January 22, 2020:
I’d suggest that what we are actually experiencing, precisely because so many are Pogo workers, is a new wave of Chinese migration.
Periodically, there are news reports with claims of Philippine passports, immigration permits and other documents being sold to these workers (or their bosses). But most striking to me is something anecdotal, though many seem to have their own version of such anecdotes: the presence of entire families, most strikingly, including mothers-in-law. This suggests people — families, including little babies — here to stay, which would make sense considering Pogos are on the hit list of Beijing, which has repeatedly expressed its displeasure over our government welcoming them. This means Pogo workers with their families are, in a sense, beyond the reach of the long arm of Beijing. So they are less agents of Chinese state infiltration (as is often bruited about) and actually economic refugees — in a sense, like Filipinos in other countries.
Readings on POGOs, the Philippines, and Beijing — August 9, 2019
As China grapples with a slowing economy, a turn inwards is pressuring even the super-wealthy to toe the party line in a conspicuous manner. I. Backgrounder: All politics is local …
II. Telecoms
The difference between intention and outcome in the case of China’s participation in the third telecom consortium. What was hoped is far from what came about. This 3-year saga tells us much , in a story I’ve been tracking for years.
Mixing the sand into the hardened soil, November 22, 2017:
Jack Ma during his Manila visit did not mention these goings-on that took place after his October visit. But nothing happens overnight so it now becomes clear why, attending a meeting with local telecom partners, he criticized internet service in the country. He was doing so to pave the way for what has been quietly unfolding, and which has now kicked into high gear with a Palace announcement: the entry of China into the telecommunications field as the “third player,” as the Palace put it, when it announced that an agreement to this effect had been signed on Nov. 15 during Chinese Premier Li Keqiang’s visit after the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summit. The Palace pledged a swift 45-day evaluation period for offers, adding that interested companies will have to comply with the 40 percent cap on foreign ownership of utilities.
Tough love from Beijing, February 14, 2018:
Now, even as Manila welcomes more Chinese investments, it says it is doing so knowing the messy deals from the Arroyo days, particularly the NBN-ZTE and Northrail messes. The solution, according to the government’s current economic managers, is to tell Beijing to be the one to nominate potential partners. This explains how the government’s preferred investor for the third telecom firm it wants to set up, is China Telecom. The firm, according to the Palace, was picked by Beijing in response to the President’s meetings with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang last November. The President has warned the bureaucracy and the courts that he will tolerate no delays in this regard, although other officials have been trying to soothe concerns over the strategic implications of this move by suggesting bidding is open to all interested parties — except the Palace in turn has said others will be welcome, but only if the China Telecom deal doesn’t push through.
The Beijing-centric nature of the deal is further underscored by the National Transmission Corp. (Transco) announcing it wanted to partner with China Telecom and that it was in talks with the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP, which manages the national electric transmission system) to use the electric grid’s interplant transmission infrastructure as the backbone for the third telecom player. But, and here is the Beijing angle, the NGCP for its part says it is eager to enter the industry but not as Transco’s partner: After all, NGCP is owned by two taipans (60 percent) and their partner, the State Grid Corp. of China (the “technical partner,” with 40 percent). NGCP says it is willing to allow use of the grid at a minimum or even zero cost — effectively undercutting Transco trying to get into the action, and laying out a sweet deal for China Telecom if it decides NGCP will be useful.
The previous administration had been bothered by this strategic sector being under heavy Chinese influence: the percentage officially owned by the State Grid, after all, is magnified by the ostensibly Filipino majority being composed of taipans who do business in China, and who are therefore subject to pressure by the Chinese authorities. The solution of the previous government was to insist on Filipinos undertaking technical management of the operations of the grid, which finally took place in July 2016 — after the Philippine government declined to renew the visas of 18 Chinese technical experts. But if industry talk is to be believed, even this has been reversed, quietly. Pleading the unreliability of native engineers, the Chinese partner resumed bringing in more Chinese engineers.
Mountains labored, bringing forth a mouse, July 17, 2019:
Note that what the President originally had in mind was China Telecom being the new player, inspired by a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in 2017. Instead, at the end of the road, China Telecom ended up as a partner in a consortium headed by Dennis Uy — a partnership reminiscent of the Sys and the State Grid Corp. of China (Transco, people all too quickly have forgotten, made a brief, failed bid in 2017 to be China Telecom’s partner for the third telecom scheme).
What happened during this period was the failure of two schemes to make China Telecom the exclusive third player. The first scheme was to replace the 1987 Constitution, either through a constituent assembly — which never got off the ground because the President took his sweet time to appoint a commission to propose a new draft; by the time it was constituted and excreted a draft, the House had gotten impatient and was busy on its own; meanwhile, the constitutional commission’s efforts proved so unwieldy, and possibly eccentric, that lawmakers disdained to take them seriously — or by just proclaiming a revolutionary government, an idea that proved more of a trial balloon on the part of the lunatic fringe in the ruling coalition.
Along came a second innovative proposal, which was to amend the Public Service Act, which would have allowed telecoms to be delisted as mandatorily being majority-owned or even partially owned by Filipinos. By late 2018, the scheme was already being described as dead in the water; back at the end of May, Sen. Grace Poe noted the bill was awaiting approval on second reading in the Senate. But the intervention of the President’s economic team, to pass the increase in the excise tax on cigarettes during the last Congress’ lame-duck session, meant no attention could be given to the bill unless the President certified it as urgent. That certification wasn’t forthcoming. Poe said they’d take up the measure in the forthcoming Congress, but it would have to start the process over, and she intended to propose “safeguards” concerning the entry of foreign investors — essentially marking the bill for a quick death in the next Congress.
The long and short of it is that despite the President’s popularity, and his ruling coalition being a political behemoth, the political beast he’s master of is a picky beast of burden.
III. Diplomacy
In terms of diplomacy, there is institutional resistance on the part of the Defense and Foreign Affairs establishment, but also, the limits to their actions because the President is doing his own thing.
China’s pleasant Asean picture, August 09, 2017:
Earlier this year, in April, the new Philippine policy became evident when the Chairman’s statement issued in Manila deleted words Filipino diplomats had previously fought long and hard to include in Asean statements. But it was not, as Prashanth Parameswaran writing in The Diplomat was careful to point out, a total surrender. The statement did retain mention of the importance of the rule of law and freedom of navigation and made one of those diplomatic “veiled” references to arbitration. What President Duterte’s statement as Chairman did do, was avoid making any references to the acts of China that had caused unease in the first place — something even Laos, the previous year, had allowed.
Why the pro-Beijing talking points are wrong, June 27, 2018
The China Syndrome, June 26, 2019:
What, exactly, does China have on the President, to make him so obliging toward Beijing?
Ever since a Gulfstream jet of Beijing Capital Airlines materialized in Davao on April 12, 2016 (departing on April 17), speculation’s been active in that regard. But I hardly think any type of squeeze play has to be involved — though there is something to be said for the speculation that Beijing extends to the President the same kind of medical benefits the late Norodom Sihanouk, former king of Cambodia, availed of for decades (indeed, he would die in a Beijing hospital in 2012).
Back in 2005, in the sidelines of a conference in Washington, a Chinese Filipino from Zamboanga told me that China was very popular in his part of the country, while America was not. The reason, he said, was simple. “When the US ambassador comes to visit, he travels in an armored Humvee and it’s like a foreign invasion,” he explained. “On the other hand, when the Chinese ambassador visits, he travels around without a huge escort and he always makes a point of giving a gift of a motorcycle or two to a local Chinese Filipino group.”
The President has been candid about this difference, too. According to him, when Americans invite you for a meeting, they merely give you a cup of coffee and a donut. But the Chinese! Ah, when they welcome you, they really welcome you: They lay out a lauriat.
One-China policy, May 05, 2021:
So many trees uselessly gave up their lives to print the thoughts of those who tried to portray this simple series of conclusions as a kind of new, daring, or at least cunning, kind of brinkmanship, playing off America versus China when all that happened was it played off the head of the executive branch versus his subordinates, who tried to prevent the President’s policy from irreversibly harming relations with the United States while the President, from time to time, simply intervened to remind everyone that he called the foreign policy shots.
He has done this again, not only disowning his Secretary of Foreign Affairs’ words but instructing his alter ego to apologize to the Chinese ambassador. Again it can be argued that the foreign ministries of the world, the President, and Beijing, know what’s what and that the President’s policy has not changed in any fundamental way since he assumed office, though it’s equally true to say the Department of Foreign Affairs and Department of National Defense both have tried to wriggle their way into moderating this policy. But for the next year, at least, the fact remains who’s boss — and where he’s decisively placed his bets.
The monuments of this administration will forever be two bridges donated by China; its mark on the pandemic will be defined by the Sinovac vaccine (though why the President, who recently received his second, and not first, Sinopharm vaccine, as some observers have concluded, was advised by his doctors to receive the other vaccine is a story we will never know); the only limit on official Chinese influence on every level of our politics is, ironically, due to the one area in which the President demonstrated true independence from Beijing: continuing the coddling of Pogos even after China applied heavy pressure for our government to persecute them (we did not comply, as Cambodia complied; it’s the pandemic that eventually drove the Pogos out, but you can bet they’d be welcomed back again).
Additional Readings
To my mind, the most influential piece of Chinese thinking I encountered, back during a State and Pentagon-sponsored trip for Asian journalists. This piece stuck in my mind and has proven prophetic.
INFORMATION WAR: A NEW FORM OF PEOPLE’S WAR Wei Jincheng
irp.fas.org
This article was excerpted from the Military Forum column, Liberation Army Daily, June 25, 1996.
