THIS year’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leader’s Summit is on, to the consternation of Metro Manilans caught in traffic gridlocks and other hassles conjured by the need to secure the summit site and make Asia-Pacific leaders’ stay in the country convenient. But this is one of the biggest global events our country has hosted in years, so while we fret we should also consider the need to be hospitable and make our hosting of the event successful.
Consider: United States President Barack Obama is already in the country after arriving in Manila yesterday straight from the G20 Summit he attended in Antalya, Turkey. Interestingly, Chinese President Xi Jinping also arrived in Manila yesterday debunking rumors he would boycott the meeting because of his country’s territorial row with the Philippines over the Spratlys. Obama and Xi leads the other Asia-Pacific top guns that will stay in the country for several days.
As the group’s name implies, the summit will focus mainly on the economic concerns of countries in the Asia and Pacific rim. That makes for a bland discussion for us who are neither in business nor are adept in economic-speak and their ramifications to our day-to-day living. So most likely the rest of us ordinary folks will be looking instead outside the summit venues, or out there where some Asia-Pacific leaders are expected to tackle non-economic issues.
On this, I am sure militants will surely be miffed. APEC is a capitalist undertaking, with the United States, the leading imperialist country in the world, playing a major role in it. But after battling US imperialism for decades and predicting its downfall, militants will find out that, at least in our country, US image has undergone a major facelift--thanks to China’s objectionable designs over the entire South China Sea.
No doubt about it, the Obama administration’s “deliberate and strategic” decision to “pivot towards Asia” is not part of an altruistic agenda but is meant to protect its interest in Asia and the Pacific considering the rise of an increasingly imperialistic China. With the demise of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), the biggest challenge to US global dominance now is obviously the People’s Republic of China.
China’s aggressive stance in the South China Sea and the United States’ pivot towards Asia has pushed the administration of President Noynoy Aquino to US embrace. It is true that US foreign policy mainly serves US interest. But it also happened that with the US giving more importance to Asia, the pleas for help of countries threatened by China’s designs in the area, specifically in the South China Sea, are now easily heard.
No wonder that immediately after Obama's arrival in the country, he visited the BRP Gregorio del Pilar, a Hamilton-class cutter of the US Coast Guard that the Philippine Government acquired after it was decommissioned in 2011. He then reiterated his country's “commitment to the defense of our ally, the Philippines.” That visit to BRP Gregorio del Pilar and that short speech must have riled up Xi, who earlier reports say did not want the South China Sea row to be discussed during his stay here.
What this shows is that while Xi is being treated coldly by the Filipinos, Obama is gaining some measure of popularity here and among the peoples of Asia-Pacific countries worried by China reclaiming reefs and islets in disputed territories and building of what could be military facilities there. We might be suspicious of US motives, but we are more concerned now with China's designs in the South China Sea.
(khanwens@gmail.com/ twitter: @khanwens)