Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte announced Thursday that he was “separating” from the United States and embracing China as the new best friend of the Philippines.
The 71-year-old president, famous for blunt, often profane rhetoric, announced his country’s realignment in a state visit to Beijing, where he was hailed as China’s new “brother.”
“Your honors, in this venue, I announce my separation from the United States … both in military, but also economics,” Duterte said to thunderous applause at a forum inside the Great Hall of the People, the bastion of the Chinese Communist Party. Without the United States, he said addressing the Chinese audience, “I will be dependent on you.”
During the visit, China and the Philippines are signing agreements for $13.5 billion in trade deals. The Philippines also said China had committed itself to $9 billion in low-interest loans. And the Philippines offered to open negotiations with China over disputed fishing waters in the South China Sea, a surprising change of policy given that an international tribunal in The Hague had ruled in July against China’s claim of historic rights to the waters.
Duterte, who took office July 30, had other choice words for the United States during his Beijing visit. He said that “America has lost now” and suggested that he was also eager to cozy up to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“I’ve realigned myself in your ideological flow and maybe I will also go to Russia to talk to Putin and tell him that there are three of us against the world — China, Philippines and Russia,” he said. And as an added slap, Duterte mimicked an American accent and said: “Americans are loud, sometimes rowdy. Their larynx is not adjusted to civility.”
Duterte has been issuing increasingly anti-American rhetoric for months, mostly in reaction to U.S. criticism of a shoot-to-kill vigilante campaign against drug dealers and addicts. Since winning the presidential election in May, an estimated 3,500 people have been killed.
“Duterte doesn’t like Western finger-wagging over human rights and he is not going to get that from China,” said John Gershman, a professor at New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service and a founder of the New York Southeast Asia Network.
Still, the unequivocal declaration by Duterte in Beijing came as a surprise to both the Chinese and the Americans, Gershman believes.
“As far as I can tell, the United States was unprepared. I don’t think anybody could imagine this could happen, or happen this quickly,” said Gershman. “The Chinese must be very happy, but I don’t think they could have dreamed of this opportunity.”
China’s President Xi Jinping called the visit by Duterte a “milestone.”
“China and the Philippines are neighbors across the sea and the two peoples are blood brothers,” Xi said.