IT is indeed insulting for China to label the Philippines a puppet of the United States, as Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro protested.

Unfortunately, it may also be true, based on certain undeniable points. Let’s go over them as objectively and truthfully as we can.

A puppet state has three characteristics.

First, it must serve the interests of the controlling nation. This is a given, but without two other traits, a nation may be an ally or a pawn but not a puppet.

Second, the puppet acts against its own interests in heeding the puppet master’s will. The first two characteristics get us closer to being a puppet, but without the third trait of foreign manipulation, we may simply be a dumb pawn following a foreign agenda against our own interests.

Third, the big power exercises powerful levers of control over the puppet. Puppet states may know their puppet master’s bidding works against them, but due to strong pressures and inducements, they comply.

Let us go over certain realities to see if the Philippines is an ally, a pawn, or, as China believes, a puppet of Uncle Sam.

Advancing the US agenda

America’s top global priority explicitly identified in its National Security Strategy (NSS), promulgated by the White House in October 2022, is: “Out-Competing China and Constraining Russia” (page 23 in the NSS, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/BidenHarris-Administrations-NationalSecurity-Strategy-10.2022.pdf).

The Philippines is certainly helping advance this agenda on several fronts.

Under US pressure, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. agreed in February to let American forces use nine bases of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) under the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), which may expire or be extended in April for another decade.

Despite Marcos’ repeated insistence that EDCA sites are not for conflict over Taiwan, which he even reiterated during his state visit to Washington in May, American generals, defense think tanks and media have often extolled the facilities as very advantageous, if not crucial if there is war over the island.

Another American agenda is mobilizing Asian nations to counter China’s geopolitical ambitions. Besides providing military bases, we help this second US strategy in two other ways.

Confrontations between Philippine and Chinese vessels reported in national and international media in recent months have portrayed China as a bully and a threat to regional security and rule of law, with the US and its allies like Australia and Japan presented as defending us.

This helps Washington’s plan to expand or build alliances in Asia against what it sees as Beijing’s goal to become the region’s dominant power. Moreover, the incidents feed China fears and animosity among Filipinos, which could then help get EDCA and its bases extended despite the immense threat of attack they pose.

Third, the planned joint maritime patrols by Philippine, US and other allied vessels would help portray unilateral freedom-of-navigation operations (fonops) by the US Navy challenging China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea into sorties to assert Philippine sovereign rights under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea — though Washington never ratified Unclos and actually challenges it through fonops.

Undermining our interests

advance its agenda, we’re no puppet if our interests are safeguarded. Are they?

Increased China frictions in the West Philippine Sea (WPS), for which President Marcos recently convened a command conference, points to one negative result, particularly of his decision to open nine bases to the US.

As this column predicted after the EDCA sites opening in February, letting American warships, air force and naval assets use AFP facilities, including five in Luzon and two in Palawan selected for war over Taiwan, would lead China to be more aggressive, so the rest of Asia would not follow suit. Beijing’s message: Bringing in Washington would make things worse.

That may well be what’s ahead, going by how superpowers behave when threatened. When Ukraine insisted on joining the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which Pope Francis saw as bringing “NATO barking at Russia’s gates,” President Vladimir Putin invaded to prevent Western forces, including atomic missiles, moving just minutes by projectile to Moscow.

Back in 1962, when Cuba nearly hosted atomic missiles of the communist Soviet Union, predecessor state of the Russian Federation, Washington nearly went to nuclear war with Moscow. The Cuban Missile Crisis was defused only after the

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Soviets pulled back its nukes and the Americans removed its projectiles in Turkey.

But the US still imposed a debilitating economic embargo on Cuba, lasting 70 years to this day. Now, as expected, China has stalled massive official development assistance (ODA) for rail projects in Luzon and Mindanao, and this is probably just the start of Beijing’s economic retaliation for EDCA.

Plainly, if we allow warplanes and warships capable of nuking China to use our bases, we cannot expect continued favorable treatment from Beijing. And it would be no surprise if even the livelihoods of 200,000 Filipinos working in Hong Kong were affected. The US treated Cuba far worse for agreeing to host Soviet nukes.

Of course, the biggest threat we face for opening nine bases to the US is a devastating attack by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

Already, Washington plans to fortify Guam, 3,000 km from China, with massive defenses requiring two years to deploy. EDCA bases are within range of far more PLA weapons, being between 800 km and 1,900 km from China.

US defense think tanks have predicted that air bases used by US forces in Asia would be attacked by China if there is conflict, as the Guam defense upgrading affirms. In a news TV program on its Taiwan war games, the Center for New

American Security (CNAS) showed US warplanes attacking from Philippine bases (7 minutes into the video at https://www.cnas.org/ publications/video/cnas-on-meetthe-press) and China retaliating against us (10 minutes).

Yet hardly any Filipino leaders and media talk about this clear and present danger. This glaring omission shows the clout America wields here, pointing to the third aspect of puppetry. More on that on November 5.