There’s a notion in international coverage circles that regardless of the unpredictability and sweeping modifications in U.S. international coverage towards allies and companions underneath President Donald Trump, the Philippines stays one of many few nations firmly aligned with Washington, as ASEAN member states calibrate their positions between the world’s superpower and the area’s dominant energy – China.
Current analysis reinforces this notion. Within the newest State of Southeast Asia public opinion survey by the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, Philippine respondents selected the U.S. over China by the widest margin amongst ASEAN member-states – 77 p.c versus 23 p.c – when pressured to select between the 2 powers. The 2026 report additionally confirmed that throughout Southeast Asia as a complete, China emerged as the popular selection over the U.S., a reversal of the Institute’s 2025 findings.
The Southeast Asia Affect Index 2025 by Sydney’s Lowy Institute equally discovered that whereas China holds larger affect over the U.S. within the majority of ASEAN member states, the Philippines, alongside Singapore and Timor-Leste, was among the many few nations the place the U.S. ranked increased throughout all 5 measures of affect: financial relationships, protection networks, cultural affect, diplomatic relationships, and regional engagement.
These findings underpin the prevailing narrative that as Southeast Asian nations drift towards Beijing or rigorously handle nice energy competitors, the Philippines stays steadfastly within the American column. That characterization, nonetheless, tells solely a part of the story. Current developments recommend that the Philippines has not forgotten tips on how to hedge. Whereas sustaining its alliance commitments with Washington, Manila has been sending deliberate alerts of a extra nuanced international coverage posture – one formed by its consciousness of the evolving strategic surroundings and the calls for of its personal nationwide pursuits.
Agency on Sovereignty, Open to Engagement
Beneath President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the Philippines has pursued a agency coverage in defending its nationwide pursuits, which has translated right into a extra assertive posture towards China than nearly every other ASEAN member state. The fact of Chinese language coercion of Filipino fishermen and uniformed personnel within the West Philippine Sea has hardened public sentiment and sharpened Manila’s dedication to its maritime claims underneath the United Nations Conference on the Legislation of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the 2016 arbitral ruling.
The Philippines’ transparency technique has dominated the discourse at any time when Philippines-China relations are mentioned. However a agency place within the West Philippine Sea doesn’t preclude strategic hedging elsewhere. In actual fact, it could require it, significantly when developments within the strategic surroundings demand a recalibration of Manila’s strategy. This has resulted in a posture that actively maintains its U.S. alliance whereas preserving channels of engagement with Beijing open.
A tangible signal of this got here in January, when the Philippines introduced a 14-day visa-free entry association for Chinese language nationals, in step with the president’s directive to facilitate commerce, funding, tourism, and people-to-people exchanges with Beijing. The one-year pilot may very well be learn as a optimistic financial sign to Beijing amid the continued maritime dispute, in line with the Philippines’ position as ASEAN chair for 2026. Additionally it is a approach for Manila to subtly talk its willingness to separate the safety dimension from the diplomatic and financial tracks of the connection.
A extra important set of developments adopted in late March. In a Bloomberg tv interview, Marcos acknowledged that there could be a “very severe restructuring” of the Philippines’ relations with China and the necessity to “redraw” Manila’s worldwide relationships amid shifting geopolitical realities. He additionally reiterated that the Philippines has all the time sought to distinguish its territorial disputes from its commerce preparations – a formulation that has lengthy been the working logic of Manila’s hedging technique, albeit not beforehand acknowledged overtly.
Days after the Bloomberg interview, the Philippines and China convened the twenty fourth International Ministry Consultations and the eleventh Assembly of the Bilateral Session Mechanism on the South China Sea from March 27 to twenty-eight in Quanzhou, Fujian Province. Each side made progress on sensible confidence-building measures, together with coast guard communications, ocean meteorology, and preliminary exchanges on potential oil and fuel collaboration. The earlier International Ministry Consultations have been held in 2023, making the Quanzhou conferences a notable resumption of the high-level diplomatic engagement.
Sensible Pressures and the ASEAN Chairmanship
These current developments have unfolded towards the backdrop of a world oil provide disruption triggered by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The Philippine financial system is reeling from the impression of this disaster, turning into the primary nation on the earth to formally declare a state of nationwide vitality emergency in late March. In his Bloomberg interview, Marcos pointed to this disruption as a possible impetus for Manila and Beijing to discover joint oil and fuel growth within the South China Sea, framing an exterior disaster as a gap for larger bilateral engagement.
These financial openings carry added weight given the Philippines’ 2026 ASEAN chairmanship. The nation assumed the chairmanship in January underneath the theme “Navigating Our Future, Collectively.” Management of ASEAN locations Manila on the middle of one of many area’s most consequential unresolved agenda objects: a legally binding Code of Conduct for the South China Sea. Following the forty eighth ASEAN Leaders’ Summit in Cebu earlier this month, Marcos reaffirmed that the Code of Conduct stays one of many Philippines’ core aspirations earlier than the yr ends.
Each the vitality safety element and the Code of Conduct hinge on a purposeful diplomatic relationship with Beijing, subsequently offering a robust foundation for the Philippines to pursue confidence-building measures in numerous areas of cooperation. As ASEAN chair, Manila additionally bears the accountability of managing the regional bloc’s collective relationship with China – a task that calls for engagement no matter bilateral tensions.
An Alliance Intact, A Posture Evolving
Does this imply the Philippines is abandoning its alliance with the US? Removed from it. The Philippines-U.S. alliance stays at a excessive level since 2016. The 2 nations simply concluded Balikatan 2026, the biggest iteration of the annual workouts thus far, involving 17,000 troops and representatives from 5 different companion nations. Previous to it, the US introduced the launch of a 4,000-Acre Financial Safety Zone, which shall be established in Luzon underneath the Pax Silica initiative. These are the latest additions to a string of protection cooperation initiatives constituting the deepening safety relationship between the 2 allies.
What the current months recommend is that whereas Manila is honoring its alliance commitments, it’s concurrently adjusting to the calls for of a shifting world panorama, and its evolving position within the regional safety structure, significantly when home pressures necessitate such recalibration.
U.S. international coverage underneath the Trump administration has launched a level of unpredictability that even treaty allies should now search actively to handle. For the Philippines, this implies navigating a extra advanced safety surroundings that requires recalibrating its financial posture and managing its relationships throughout bilateral and multilateral networks. The vitality disaster has solely sharpened Manila’s drive to discover all viable choices in securing the nation’s vitality wants, offering a sensible foundation for engagement with Beijing that goes past the contentious maritime safety scenario.
The Philippines, in different phrases, is doing what smaller states have all the time executed in navigating between main powers: drawing clear traces, standing agency on them, and preserving area to interact the place pursuits enable it. Crucially, Manila has been clear that any transfer ahead shall be anchored within the nation’s legal guidelines and can protect its sovereignty and sovereign rights. What the Philippines is doing is a calculated hedge – a rational response when parts of uncertainty and volatility are launched into its strategic calculus.
Disclaimer: all views expressed on this piece are solely of the writer and don’t, except in any other case acknowledged, essentially replicate the official coverage or place of establishments, organizations, associates, or every other people or entities to which he’s related.
