South China Sea: why Philippines’ Duterte may be doing U-turn on pro-Beijing stance

Duterte may be recalibrating his pro-China stance to win support for his family’s electoral ambitions, analysts say

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Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing in 2019. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 2:28pm, 2 Jul 2024Updated: 4:38pm, 2 Jul 2024

Former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte, who once called Chinese President Xi Jinping a very close friend, is taking a harder stance against Beijing by doubling down on his country’s claims in the South China Sea, a move seen as a bid to shore up support for his family’s electoral ambitions.

In a Sunday press conference aired by local media, Duterte said that as a Filipino he would insist the West Philippine Sea – Manila’s term for waters in the South China Sea within its exclusive economic zone – belonged to the Filipinos, a stance that appeared to contradict his soft foreign policy towards Beijing when he was in office.

“As a Filipino, the contested area … if you ask me, it is really ours. As a Filipino, I would insist that that part of the West Philippine Sea is ours,” Duterte told reporters. “We didn’t have a conflict with China then. We were free to fish in and out of the area. Nobody was bugging us and there was no issue of territory.”

In the last six years of his term, Duterte affirmed the “importance of continuing” talks in solving the maritime dispute. He worked to rebuild ties with Beijing that had frayed after the international arbitration court in The Hague rejected China’s expansive claims in the contested waterway in 2016. Duterte was also hostile towards the United States and steered Manila away from military cooperation with Washington.

Political analyst Edmund Tayao, president and CEO of the think tank Political Economic Elemental Researchers and Strategists, told This Week in Asia that Duterte’s new stance was a tactic to win over many Filipinos who have been wary of Beijing since his daughter Sara and the country’s vice president announced that three of her family members, including the senior Duterte, would run in next year’s Senate election.

“That’s the only likely reason. He has to take the popular position otherwise many will likely shift [away from] support he originally enjoyed,” Tayao said. “It seems he remains popular, but no longer as before.”