Yearly Archives: 2022

Letter from Manila: Negotiating at Gunpoint

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November 15, 2022

By Greg Rushford

Manila, Philippines — It’s past time to sound some national security alarm bells. The Philippines, America’s oldest treaty ally in the Pacific, has been facing economic and military pressures from China. Beijing’s bullying has been intensifying gradually for more than thirty years. The hard truth is that the Chinese are winning.

The PLA Navy — clearly contrary to international law, as determined by an international tribunal in The Hague in 2016 — has been preventing Philippine fishers from casting their nets in the South China Sea. Chinese predatory fishing in Philippine waters has been devastating to corals and other marine life, while also causing Philippine fish stocks to drop more than 60 percent. And now, adding insult to injury, China has been exporting Philippine fish it has stolen — back to the Philippines.

The same PLA Navy has been preventing the Philippines from developing much-needed oil and gas resources in Philippine waters — notably including Reed Bank, which is within the Philippines’ continental shelf and is believed to have the energy resources needed to keep the country’s electricity grids running. Xi Jinping, the general secretary of the Communist Party of China, has given his coast guard permission to shoot to kill any Philippine exploration vessels that interfere with China’s ambitions to develop Reed Bank’s resources. Former Philippine Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio observes that Xi’s bullying “clearly violates international law.”

Xi is essentially demanding that Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. negotiate away his country’s energy independence — at gunpoint. As Eduardo Mañalac told me, because of the political risk associated with the Chinese military intimidation around Philippine oil-exploration fields, no major western market-oriented oil company will touch the Philippines. Xi is basically asking Marcos to agree to negotiate only with Chinese state-owned drilling concerns which do not pretend to adhere to international standards of financial transparency.

Mañalac is a respected former president of the Philippine National Oil Company, and a former senior official in the Philippines’ energy department. His concerns over the corrosive effects of Chinese corruption are well-taken in leading international energy circles. And in Manila’s legal circles, the scent of scandal is in the air, fueled by pending civil litigation alleging high-level governmental cronyism, and also criminal complaints alleging graft.

If Xi Jinping succeeds in intimidating the new Philippine president, who has only been in office since June, China will develop and control a key part of the Philippine energy sector. The Philippines will have been shamed — and residents of cities like Manila will have Xi to thank, every time they turn their lights on.

It’s worth looking back briefly at how one of America’s most important security allies has landed in such a predicament. Last month, I spent two intense weeks of mostly off-the-record talks with the usual journalistic sources, ranging from ordinary citizens who chafe at Chinese bullying to the higher echelons from the worlds of national security, diplomacy, politics, law, and business. The gist of what I picked up points to one bottom line: a lack of necessary political will at the presidential levels in both Washington and Manila, dating to the early 1990s.

What Happens when the Yankees Really Do Go Home

In 1991, the United States Air Force and Navy evacuated the large U.S. bases at Clark Field and Subic Bay. Volcanic eruptions from nearby Mt. Pinatubo that covered both bases in ash were the immediate impetus for the pullout. But the real reason involved insular-looking Philippine domestic politics. That, plus American stubbornness during endless negotiations over the usual suspect: money.

Then-President Corazon Aquino and some of her aides who wore anti-American chips on their shoulders had made it plain that Uncle Sam just wasn’t welcome anymore. And the Yankees, fed up with years of negotiations over basing rights that went nowhere, were happy to go home.

While over the years, the Philippines has succeeded commendably in turning the former U.S. bases into one of the most thriving hubs of economic growth in Southeast Asia. But watchful military eyes in Beijing soon perceived that the Philippines was left defenseless.

In 1995, the Philippines discovered that the Chinese navy had seized Mischief Reef, a tiny speck in the South China Sea that is part of the Philippines’ continental shelf. Chinese officials insisted that that they were just erecting fishing shelters. Manila and its neighbors in ASEAN fussed for awhile, but basically shrugged.

The PLA Navy on the Move

Visiting Manila in 1998, I saw Philippine reconnaissance photos that showed that the Chinese had erected military features on Mischief Reef, gun turrets, and such. When those photos hit the Manila papers, there was a public outcry (at least involving ordinary Filipinos, if not so much business elites with their eyes on doing business with a rising China).

Meanwhile, officials in then-President Bill Clinton’s State Department were not much bothered. Don’t worry: China lacks the resources necessary to project real military power, I was told.

The Clinton White House was busy extending a helping hand to a mainland China that wanted to get back on its feet and join the market-oriented global economy, after decades of economic mismanagement by the Communist Party of China. Clinton saw a potential peaceable economic partner, not a strategic rival-in-waiting.

From 2001 to 2008, the drift continued. President George W. Bush, his hands full with Iraq and Afghanistan, never seemed to focus on the future dangers associated with Chinese mischief in the South China Sea.

As had his predecessor Clinton, Bush welcomed China into the World Trade Organization in 2001. Inside WTO headquarters in Geneva, China quickly assumed the mantle of a responsible participant in multilateral negotiations, including those aimed at persuading governments to slash subsidies to their fishing fleets that were engaged in illegal fishing. But on the high seas, the Chinese fishing fleets kept doing ever more environmental damage. By 2016, marine biologists were warning that the South China Sea’s fish stocks were heading toward collapse.

An American President Blinks

By the time President Barack Obama, who sat in the Oval Office from 2009-2016, completed his eight years in office, the PLA Navy had taken near-total control of the South China Sea.  

The PLA Navy, of course, had its eyes on much more than fish. The story is now as familiar as it is disconcerting: how the Chinese created artificial islands out of white sand and coral in Philippine Exclusive Economic Zone. What were once half-submerged specks in the sea are now modern Chinese naval and air bases. Mischief Reef, Fiery Cross, and Subi Reef have hardened runways for jet fighters, sophisticated radars, jamming equipment, lasers, anti-aircraft missile launchers, and more.

The United States Navy, which specializes in conventional surface warfare — but isn’t so adept at waging political warfare — watched America’s former military dominance of the South China Sea slip away. Beijing’s weapons of choice were a mixture of the usual sleight-of-hand: propaganda and disinformation proclaiming Chinese good intentions, sand dredgers, and coast guard ships that were accompanied by swarms of maritime militia “fishing” fleets. 

While all this was underway, Xi assured China’s neighbors that his military would not weaponize the South China Sea. That was, of course, a lie.  But the disinformation worked. As Seth Jones has written, China took the South China Sea “without firing a shot.”

Obama watched all this happen. He promised senior Philippine officials I’ve spoken with that America would not just stand idly by. But that’s what he did.

Washington Starts to Pay Attention

It wasn’t until 2020 that an American secretary of state, Michael Pompeo, working with David Stillwell, a respected Asian hand who headed State’s East Asian Affairs bureau, stated publicly that the United States recognized that the Chinese maritime aggression was in violation of international law. Last month in Manila, I was reminded several times how welcome that statement was. The State Department had signaled that America was starting to get serious about protecting its friends in the Pacific.

Indeed, in April 2020, the U.S. Navy helped Malaysia fend off Chinese Coast Guard and maritime militias, which were trying to bully the Malaysians out of exploring for oil and gas in Malaysia’s Exclusive Economic Zone.  This is still being talked about in Manila’s national security circles.

As Philippine investigative reporter and author Marites Vitug has noted approvingly, “three American warships and an Australian frigate conducted a joint exercise near the site” of Malaysia’s exploration activities. Vitug also pointed out that when faced with such resolve, the Chinese intruders backed off.

I still cannot report that America has yet put into operation what could be called a truly sophisticated political-military-diplomatic maritime strategy. But some steps in the right direction have continued on President Joe Biden’s watch.

Last month, to cite just one of several recent encouraging developments, U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines MaryKay Carlson announced that “the United States has now made available $100 million in foreign military financing in part for the Philippine military to use as it wishes.”

Searching for Presidential Political Will in Manila

But how does one help an ally who lacks the political will to defend its own sovereignty? Former Philippine President Benigno Aquino, Jr. clearly had the necessary determination to stand up to Chinese bullying. In 2013, Aquino filed a challenge in The Hague, asserting that Chinese aggression in the South China Sea violated Beijing’s obligations as a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. And on July 12, 2016, Aquino’s move became a resounding success, when an UNCLOS tribunal ruled that China had acted illegally. It was “an overwhelming victory for the Philippines,” as Greg Poling noted in his recent, very well-received book, On Dangerous Ground.

“The judges agreed that China had illegally destroyed the marine environment through clam harvesting, intentionally created the risk of collision [with] foreign ships, and prevented the Philippines from accessing the resources of its EEZ and continental shelf,” Poling wrote.  Moreover, “they berated China for building artificial islands while the arbitration was underway.”

But there was one problem with the tribunal’s finding: it was issued twelve days after Rodrigo Duterte had succeeded Aquino as president. And it turned out that Duterte, a man who enjoyed projecting an image of a tough guy in the political arena, wasn’t so tough after all when it came to standing up to bullies in Beijing. The Philippine “strongman” refused to enforce his country’s legal victory — leaving Philippine fishing communities hanging, and potential oil and gas exploration, especially in Reed Bank, subject to the PLA Navy’s intimidation.

Just one 2018 press release issued by the historically weak Philippine Coast Guard showed the atmosphere of subservience that Duterte nourished.

Duterte and Xi Jinping had signed a maritime cooperation agreement, the release noted. So the Philippine Coast Guard had gotten busy making friends with China’s Coast Guard.  Translation:  that meant that the two coast guards bonded when they got together in Guangzhou.  Readers who have ever experienced Chinese hospitality will have already imagined the partying and entertainment.

Afterwards, the Philippine Coast Guard issued a press release that celebrated its fraternal ties with the same Chinese Coast Guard that had taken control of Philippine fishing grounds. “The two sides noted the positive outcomes of the bilateral relations and expressed their willingness to further deepen cooperation by conducting port visits, joint exercises, personnel exchange and training, and utilization of hotline communication,” the Philippine press release enthused. 

The Philippine Coast Guard now has new leadership said not to be subservient to China. Whether that’s true or not, a Coast Guard spokesman told me last month that he was not authorized to talk about Chinese maritime aggression.

Political Risk

Meanwhile, on Duterte’s watch, Philippine government officials close to him allegedly pressured two American oil majors, Shell and Chevron, to sell their shares in the Philippines’ Malampaya gas field to a crony of Duterte’s who has a reputation of being pro-Chinese. This was “extremely suspicious,” notes Eduardo Mañalac, the former president of the Philippine National Oil Company.

Malampaya is important for two reasons. It supplies perhaps 40 percent of Manila’s electric grid. And it is running out of gas reserves, which makes future exploration on Reed Bank, and elsewhere very important.

Mañalac is not the only reputable Philippine critic of the Malampaya sale. Reuben Torres, a well-regarded former executive secretary to former Philippine President Fidel Ramos, is pressing litigation that alleges that the transaction was of dubious legality. 

And the Philippines’ Office of the Ombudsman is reported to be looking into separate charges that the Malampaya transaction was criminal. 

Whatever the truth, the whiff of political risk is hanging in the political air that Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., the new Philippines president known better as “Bong Bong Marcos,” has inherited. The message to international oil majors is that Philippine energy sector is tilted in favor of Xi and the PLA Navy. Such a lack of a level playing field explains why only the Chinese government has expressed interest in exploring for oil in Chinese-controlled Philippine waters.

So how will this story end? The answer depends upon how Bong Bong Marcos responds to the bullies from Beijing.  As Greg Poling has observed, while the Chinese have been winning, they haven’t yet “won.”  

I believe that despite the previous years of mistakes in Washington, involving both Democratic and Republican presidents, the new Philippine leader will have America’s backing — if he genuinely wants it.

Stay tuned.

Letter from Rappahannock: Rural Republicans Who Despise Biden More than Putin

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By Greg Rushford

July 16, 2022

Foreign affairs specialists will have seen various headlines in recent years suggesting that some American Republicans — Putin admirers like Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson are usually the first national names to be mentioned — believe that Democrats like President Joe Biden are greater threats to U.S. national security than Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

And earlier this month, the Brookings Institution turned in an analysis of recent national polling data suggesting that more Democrats than Republicans are prepared to keep on providing military aid to help Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky defend his country from Putin’s bloody and unprovoked invasion.

We’ll get to that big-picture analysis. But first, a closer look at one small community in rural Virginia provides some insights into changing attitudes towards Russia that are playing out at grassroots levels of American politics.

Rappahannock County, Virginia, where I live, is nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains some 70 miles west of Washington, D.C. Our county is roughly the same size as Singapore, where the comparison ends. Singapore has skyscrapers and 5.7 million people. Rappahannock has idyllic country roads, lovely mountain views — and only about 7,400 residents, the majority of whom vote Republican.

This is Trump country. While the former president did not carry Virginia overall in 2020 in his losing re-election bid, he easily beat Joe Biden here in Rappahannock, 54-44 percent. In the 2016 presidential contest here, Trump thoroughly trounced Hillary Clinton, 59-40 percent. No Democratic presidential contender has carried Rappahannock in this century. Barack Obama came the closest in 2008, losing narrowly to Republican John McCain, 51-49.  

But when it comes to foreign affairs — notably concerning the importance of countering Vladimir Putin’s dreams to restore the Russian empire by force —  it appears that Rappahannock County Republicans are no longer the party of John McCain. McCain stood against authoritarians like Russia’s Vladimir Putin (and Donald Trump).

Our local Republican congressman has voted against providing military aid to help Ukraine defend itself from the Russian invaders. A Rappahannock lawyer has been flying the Russian flag —and the top Republican in the county won’t comment on whether Republicans should cheer or boo that. (Another local resident has been displaying a sign in his front yard that says F*ck Biden. Again, our local Republican chairman — who is also a Baptist deacon who teaches Bible classes — declines comment on whether Republicans should keep their mouths shut when faced with such indecency.) 

Even some prominent local Republicans who don’t admire Putin in the slightest — and consider him a dangerous threat — have said they believe that Joe Biden is the more immediate national security threat to America.

Still another current Republican candidate for Congress, a decorated Navy hero and a graduate of Annapolis, says that he is Joe Biden’s “worst nightmare” — but declines comment on whether he would be Putin’s.

That’s a mouthful. Let’s digest this more carefully, one grassroots bite at a time.

Waging culture wars on the Pentagon

Rep. Bob Good, the self-styled Biblical conservative who represents Rappahannock County in Virginia’s sprawling 5th congressional district, was one of 57 House Republicans who voted in May to deny the Biden administration’s request to provide an additional $40 billion in urgent military aid to Ukraine. Good was joined by such House members from the extreme-right wing of his party as Reps. Marjorie Taylor-Greene (GA), Lauren Boebert (CO), Matt Gaetz (FL), and Jim Jordan (OH). On the other side of the Hill, eleven Republican Senators from the nationalistic wing of the party also voted to pull the plug on Zelensky, including presidential wannabees Rand Paul (KY) and Josh Hawley (MO).

Good, an ardent America Firster, justified his anti-Ukraine vote by blaming “the Biden-Pelosi America-last agenda.” The Democrats, he said, “are ignoring the many crises plaguing our country, including family budget-busting inflation, supply chain shortages for baby formula and other essentials, surging violent crime in our cities, and millions of illegals trafficking across our Southern Border.”

Last week, Good voted — not for the first time — against the annual National Defense Authorization Act. NDAAs are at the core of congressional support for America’s national security fundamentals; without this legislation, the Defense Department could not function. The Pentagon could not support American troops and American weapons systems worldwide. This Fiscal 2023 NDAA bill that Good refused to support also authorizes more military support for Ukraine.

Good’s basic frame of reference when addressing U.S. national security priorities seems to be rooted in his enthusiasm for fighting America’s culture wars. He is outraged that U.S. military leaders keep insisting upon the importance of vaccinating “our men and women in uniform.” He also believes the top brass are intent upon brainwashing — there is no softer way to put it — American troops through misguided “woke indoctrination” on racial issues. And Good is further outraged over Defense Department analyses that point to climate change as a serious national security threat.

Flying foreign flags

Driving along our country roads, one sees that Rappahannock County residents, as in many other rural communities across the United States, are displaying an impressive number of blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flags. Such indications of support come from local Republicans and Democrats who are united in their opposition to Russian aggression.

But conspicuously, along one of our charming roads where three scenic rivers converge, one well-known Rappahannock lawyer has been flying a Russian flag.

Lawyer David Konick has been anything but shy about publicly supporting Putin’s reasoning on why Russia has waged war on Ukraine.  Hey, it’s a free country! Konick enjoys a reputation as a skilled advocate, and as a man who relishes taking no prisoners when debating with those who have differing views. Despite such acrimony, though, Konick brings a valuable insider’s perspective to the debate. (I enjoy reading his online postings, as they provoke thought, which is what free speech is supposed to do.)

Notwithstanding, the point here is that traditionally, the leaders of the party of Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan would have been quick to take sharp issue with Americans who would fly the Russian flag.  

Not the Republican Party of Rappahannock County, it seems. It’s chairman, Terry Dixon, refused repeated requests to say which side he thinks good Republicans should be rooting for: Russia or Ukraine.

Dixon also ignored questions asking about the national security logic driving Rep. Good’s vote to deny that $40 billion in additional military aid to Ukraine.

Nor did the Baptist deacon respond to questions about the angry Rappahannock neighbor who has been displaying “F*ck Biden” and “Let’s Go Brandon” signs on a village thoroughfare close to several local churches, including his own. (The offensive signs, at least, do not appear to have been displayed on Sunday mornings.)

Who’s more dangerous to America, Putin or Biden?

Even more traditional prominent Rappahannock Republicans who clearly are no admirers of Vladimir Putin seem to have more important concerns.

“America has three extremely dangerous enemies: The Chinese Communist Party. Vladimir Putin, and Joe Biden,” according to an online posting by one of Rappahannock County’s most well-known Republican opinion leaders. But “right now, Joe Biden is doing the most damage to America and Americans,” she contends.

Those were the words of Demaris Miller, whose husband Jim served as Ronald Reagan’s director of the Office of Management and Budget. She holds a PhD in psychology — and clearly doesn’t think much of Joe Biden’s psychological makeup.

Miller and local lawyer David Konick — the neighbor who supports the Russian side of the security equation — have at times exchanged sharply differing views on Rappnet, our local online community discussion forum that is an excellent place to try to understand local Republican attitudes.

(I’ve been monitoring Rappnet, with the consent of its administrator, since shortly after the January 6, 2021, Trump riots on Capitol Hill. It can serve up some pretty raw local opinions from the backwoods, such as those from one conservative gentleman who dismissed Central American children desperately trying to cross the U.S.-Mexican southern border as “wetback slime kids.”)

Miller told me that despite the appearance of acrimony, she and lawyer Konick remain “very good friends” As for “the sparring between us,” she said in one e-mail, “it is not as acrimonious as it seems to those who do not really know us. There is no real rancor there.”

In Miller’s view, while Putin is a far greater danger to America, meanwhile President Biden has “gutted our National Defense while continuing the Obama policy of weaponizing the IRS and the Justice Department against those not loyal to the Democrat party.”

In another posting, Miller contended that “Joe Biden never cared about anyone except his own power, bank account, and the Biden Crime Syndicate that made it all possible.” Since Biden’s earliest days in the presidency, Miller has also voiced her opinion that the “senile” American president is controlled by “a secret cabal” in the White House. She stands behind those sentiments.

Hung Cao to the Rescue?

A retired U.S. Navy Captain named Hung Cao is running in the forthcoming November mid-term elections to become Rappahannock County’s next Republican congressman. (Thanks to redistricting aimed at eliminating the undemocratic consequences of Bob Good’s 5th District, where the odds have been heavily gerrymanderd in favor of Republican candidates, Rappahannock has been moved to Virginia’s 10th congressional district. The tenth district includes some heavily populated suburban areas now represented by a Democrat, Jennifer Wexton, who lives in one of those adjacent counties. It looks to be a tight race.)

Cao is a recently retired U.S. Navy captain who says he was motivated to get into politics after watching President Biden’s bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Cao certainly has a most admirable life story. His family escaped from South Vietnam shortly before the communist takeover in April 1975. Armed with nothing other than his native intelligence and a driven desire to succeed in his new country, Cao went on to graduate from the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. A Navy diver, he served with distinction in special-forces operations during a 25-year career — earning a chest-full of combat ribbons. His is the classic American immigrant success story.

Healing divisions, or exploiting them?

Cao — who declined to be interviewed for this article — has said that if elected, he would work to heal America’s divisions, as his hero Ronald Reagan once did. But the shrill tone of Cao’s campaign literature suggests otherwise.

Basically, Cao has been running against imaginary Democrats who don’t love their country. “My father was on the Communist Party’s kill list, but America welcomed him with open arms,” Cao declared in one recent fundraising pitch. “I am forever in debt to America, and I won’t let the country I owe my life to go down the same path as the communist horror I left behind.”

Cao did not respond to my written questions concerning whether he agreed with congressional Republicans like Bob Good who have voted to pull the plug on additional military assistance to Ukraine.

The closest answer to that question I was able to find in an extensive public record search was this ambiguous statement Cao recently posted on Twitter: “Biden economic advisor says American families should continue suffering with high gas prices to protect the liberal world order. Are you kidding me?”

To be sure, rising inflation is nothing to kid about, especially here in rural America where it can cost workmen well over a hundred dollars just to fill the tanks of their trucks. And nobody denies that the higher energy costs that are driving that inflation are part of the price for American support of Ukraine’s defense.

So far, as Brookings analyst Shibley Telhami wrote on July 5, most Americans are willing to pay that price, if that’s what it takes to draw the line against Russian aggression against its European neighbors.

But Telhami pointed to recent national polling that indicates there is a growing political divide. “There are substantial differences in the degree of preparedness to pay a price for supporting Ukraine between Democrats and Republicans, and the gap between the two is slowly growing, with Democrats expressing much greater willingness to pay a price,” the Brookings scholar wrote.

“While 78 percent of Democrats are prepared to see higher energy costs, only 44 percent of Republicans say the same; while 72 percent of Democrats are prepared to pay with higher inflation, only 39 percent of Republicans say the same.”

Democrats who support Ukraine

For readers who will be wondering where the Democrats stand on supporting Ukraine, there isn’t much news to report. The incumbent Democratic congresswoman from the 10th district, Jennifer Wexton, has voted consistently to support military assistance for Ukraine.  Her stance does not seem to have been controversial in her district’s Democratic circles. (Despite Hung Cao’s fundraising appeals, Wexton does not hate America. Readers will just have to trust me on this!)

In the congressional district next door, Democrat Abagail Spanberger, a respected former CIA officer, is considered to be one of her party’s bright lights when it comes to national security.

The political problem for congressional moderates like Wexton and Spanberger is that the forthcoming congressional elections are hardly shaping up as favorable to socially liberal candidates who don’t offer red meat to angry constituents.

Back to the Political Future?

In the olden days before America became so bitterly divided, two of Rappahannock’s most well-known residents were James Kilpatrick and Eugene McCarthy. Republican Kilpatrick was a very conservative newspaper columnist. Democrat McCarthy was a very liberal U.S. senator from Minnesota who in the 1960s challenged President Lyndon Johnson for his (mis)conduct during the Vietnam War.

But the two political opposites became fast friends and drinking buddies who told war stories over whiskey. And each could write beautifully.

Those days of political civility, alas, are long gone.

Surely, from his desk in the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin — a man who has spared no efforts to exploit divisions in American society as he plots to restore Russia’s lost empire — must be smiling.