By NESTOR MATA
October 27, 2015
WHOEVER wins the Philippine presidency next year should have enough knowledge and wisdom in navigating the country’s foreign relations in the Asian troubled region.
We won’t know yet who of the aspirants for the presidency will be in the final list of the Commission on Elections in December. Still, this early we can say that only four of them will be the contenders, namely, Vice President Jejomar Binay, opposition leader; Mar Roxas, anointed by soon-to-be ex-President Noynoy Aquino as his administration’s bet; Senator Grace Poe aka “Mary Grace Poe Sonora Llamanzares”, an independent candidate; and Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago.
So far, Binay has vowed he will lead a better government if elected next year, while Roxas is expected to continue Aquino’s vaunted “Tuwid na Daan” programs. Poe, a political neophyte, promised to champion good governance and transparency. And Santiago will bring to the presidency her long experience as a lawmaker, a government administrator, and an expert in fiery political rhetoric.
Aside from the task of cleaning up the mess outgoing President Noynoy Aquino’s messy administration in 2016, whoever may be the next president, there is the problem of navigating the nation’s foreign relations in the troubled Asian region. Does he or she have enough knowledge, strength, and wisdom to handle foreign-policy matters, or even just a minimal foreign-policy credibility?
One or two have talked about the maritime and territorial dispute in the South China Sea, particularly the West Philippine Sea, with China, but is he or she fully aware that Beijing has very recently expanded its aggressive activities in the Asian and Pacific regions? It’s called China’s “political warfare” against the United States and its allies in Asia.
A group of experts recently surveyed China’s efforts against Washington and its allies, according to Prahanth Parameswaran of The Diplomat magazine on current Asian and Pacific affairs. They said these Chinese actions should be examined as part of the broader effort to influence the thoughts and actions of foreign governments, groups and individuals in a manner favorable to Beijing’s own objectives --- activities known as political warfare or influence operations. Here are excerpts from an insightful article on the views of those experts:
Chinese political warfare is deeply rooted in Chinese history, according to Mark Stokes, executive director of the Project 2049 Institute. Stokes pointed out that Beijing has been distorting objective reality and the lengths to which it has been willing to go to do so has been practically striking.
The practice also enjoys high-level bureaucratic support within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Political warfare --- known euphemistically in China as “PLA military liaison work” --- is supported by an elaborate organizational structure that includes elements of the PLA’s General Political Department as well as the CCP’s Central Propaganda Department.
Aaron Friedberg, a professor at Princeton University, noted that Beijing has been using political warfare as an important part of its ongoing strategic competition with Washington. He said the goal is to persuade the United States to accept China as an equal, and eventually dominant, global power.
Chinese political warfare in the United States, Friedberg said, has become broader and more complex such that it now seeks to influence three particular groups --- “old friends” of China, who were rewarded with dialogues and business ventures; influential elites in business, diplomats and the military who were courted through visits, exchanges and joint research projects; “mass perceptions” swayed through mass media.
On Taiwan, according to Stokes, the Chinese objective was to ensure that all countries of the world would recognize the People’s Republic of China as the legitimate representative of all of China, including Taiwan by working to implement the “one country, two systems” formula.
With respect to Japan, Randy Schriver, the president and CEO of the Project 2049 Institute, said that China is using history as a major part of its political warfare in order to create a distorted narrative of Japanese “militarization” and to sow divisions within the US-Japan alliance.
Beijing’s selective reading of history, in the view of Shriver, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, not only largely leave out the last 70 years during which the US-Japan alliance has been one of the foundations of Asian prosperity, including China’s, but hides China’s own abuse of history in its museums and textbooks.
Incidentally, the conference participants didn’t include in their discussion other US allies in Asia, such as the Philippines and Vietnam, among the priority countries for Chinese political warfare. But they did acknowledge that Chinese political warfare activities face some serious limitations, including the growing tension between words and deeds as well as the broadening of the conversation on China in Washington which makes it more difficult to control narratives.
For the United States, concluded one of the experts, the focus should be on hardening the country against Chinese political warfare activities, and efforts could range from increasing transparency to constructing “counter-narratives” to undermine Chinese messages and expose either weaknesses in capabilities or transgressions of various kinds, including the maritime realm.
Otherwise, the US-China relationship would take past a point of no return!
We won’t know yet who of the aspirants for the presidency will be in the final list of the Commission on Elections in December. Still, this early we can say that only four of them will be the contenders, namely, Vice President Jejomar Binay, opposition leader; Mar Roxas, anointed by soon-to-be ex-President Noynoy Aquino as his administration’s bet; Senator Grace Poe aka “Mary Grace Poe Sonora Llamanzares”, an independent candidate; and Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago.
So far, Binay has vowed he will lead a better government if elected next year, while Roxas is expected to continue Aquino’s vaunted “Tuwid na Daan” programs. Poe, a political neophyte, promised to champion good governance and transparency. And Santiago will bring to the presidency her long experience as a lawmaker, a government administrator, and an expert in fiery political rhetoric.
Aside from the task of cleaning up the mess outgoing President Noynoy Aquino’s messy administration in 2016, whoever may be the next president, there is the problem of navigating the nation’s foreign relations in the troubled Asian region. Does he or she have enough knowledge, strength, and wisdom to handle foreign-policy matters, or even just a minimal foreign-policy credibility?
One or two have talked about the maritime and territorial dispute in the South China Sea, particularly the West Philippine Sea, with China, but is he or she fully aware that Beijing has very recently expanded its aggressive activities in the Asian and Pacific regions? It’s called China’s “political warfare” against the United States and its allies in Asia.
A group of experts recently surveyed China’s efforts against Washington and its allies, according to Prahanth Parameswaran of The Diplomat magazine on current Asian and Pacific affairs. They said these Chinese actions should be examined as part of the broader effort to influence the thoughts and actions of foreign governments, groups and individuals in a manner favorable to Beijing’s own objectives --- activities known as political warfare or influence operations. Here are excerpts from an insightful article on the views of those experts:
Chinese political warfare is deeply rooted in Chinese history, according to Mark Stokes, executive director of the Project 2049 Institute. Stokes pointed out that Beijing has been distorting objective reality and the lengths to which it has been willing to go to do so has been practically striking.
The practice also enjoys high-level bureaucratic support within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Political warfare --- known euphemistically in China as “PLA military liaison work” --- is supported by an elaborate organizational structure that includes elements of the PLA’s General Political Department as well as the CCP’s Central Propaganda Department.
Aaron Friedberg, a professor at Princeton University, noted that Beijing has been using political warfare as an important part of its ongoing strategic competition with Washington. He said the goal is to persuade the United States to accept China as an equal, and eventually dominant, global power.
Chinese political warfare in the United States, Friedberg said, has become broader and more complex such that it now seeks to influence three particular groups --- “old friends” of China, who were rewarded with dialogues and business ventures; influential elites in business, diplomats and the military who were courted through visits, exchanges and joint research projects; “mass perceptions” swayed through mass media.
On Taiwan, according to Stokes, the Chinese objective was to ensure that all countries of the world would recognize the People’s Republic of China as the legitimate representative of all of China, including Taiwan by working to implement the “one country, two systems” formula.
With respect to Japan, Randy Schriver, the president and CEO of the Project 2049 Institute, said that China is using history as a major part of its political warfare in order to create a distorted narrative of Japanese “militarization” and to sow divisions within the US-Japan alliance.
Beijing’s selective reading of history, in the view of Shriver, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, not only largely leave out the last 70 years during which the US-Japan alliance has been one of the foundations of Asian prosperity, including China’s, but hides China’s own abuse of history in its museums and textbooks.
Incidentally, the conference participants didn’t include in their discussion other US allies in Asia, such as the Philippines and Vietnam, among the priority countries for Chinese political warfare. But they did acknowledge that Chinese political warfare activities face some serious limitations, including the growing tension between words and deeds as well as the broadening of the conversation on China in Washington which makes it more difficult to control narratives.
For the United States, concluded one of the experts, the focus should be on hardening the country against Chinese political warfare activities, and efforts could range from increasing transparency to constructing “counter-narratives” to undermine Chinese messages and expose either weaknesses in capabilities or transgressions of various kinds, including the maritime realm.
Otherwise, the US-China relationship would take past a point of no return!
source: Malaya
No comments:
Post a Comment