Exclusive | Q&A: Philippine foreign minister on why Duterte and Xi Jinping get along

President Rodrigo Duterte’s top foreign official likens the two leaders to street tough guys – or ‘sigas’ – who respect each other and don’t want to fight

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Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte sings at an event with members of the Filipino community in Hong Kong. Photo: EPA

Published: 9:00am, 13 Apr 2018Updated: 9:32am, 13 Apr 2018

In an exclusive interview with This Week in Asia, Philippine Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano spoke on his country’s closer ties with China. Here is an edited transcript of the session:

On Philippines’ closer relations with China under President Duterte

First of all, our constitution does provide for an independent foreign policy. It is only by being independent that you can fight for your nation’s interests.

Then there is something innate to the president, a philosophy formed early on in life. Davao was a chaotic place in the 1960s and 1970s, so when President (Rodrigo) Duterte came … there was violence. So he said if you want peace in Davao, if you want to progress, you have to have peace and if you want peace, you have to accept people’s ideas. This carried over when he became president. If you want development – progress – you have to have peace. But if you are constantly bickering with your neighbours whoever they are, you can’t focus on progress and development. The president is a very well-read person and he saw that the dispute in the South China Sea has multi-claimants.

Asean and the art of living with China

So we do have a dispute even with Malaysia and Vietnam, but it doesn’t make sense to get in an argument so much so that it destroys our relationships. It makes less sense picking one, whether they are the bigger one or the smaller one.

The president has one law, one philosophy, one direction for everyone. If you are willing to talk and you are willing to build mutual trust and you are willing to have an avenue to discuss our differences, including our territorial and sovereignty right claims, then we are also willing to talk.

On the progress made so far

We stopped the bleeding. In the last few years people have been shouting at each other, but no one is listening to each other. If you take the Philippines’ point of view, you will understand why we were shouting. If you take the Chinese view, you will know why they were shouting … but no one was looking at anyone else’s point of view. What this led to was not only an argument with words, but it led to claimants inhabiting features where it is clear in the DOC [Declaration of the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea] that we are not supposed to inhabit uninhabited features and not further complicate the situation.