Well, there is more than one way to get over the loss of an Arbitration decision that left China with a bad taste in its mouth over the Philippines. First China ignored the action that did not meet their requirements. Second, their representative in the Philippines told President Duterte what to say about the decision - and he listened and obeyed. In the Wall Street Journal today is a story about why he did listen - billions of dollars that went to his home town , Davao, straight from China's coffers. How nice to be able to make the home town people happy with your leadership. Of course the rest of the folks in the Philippines may not like it so much, but at least your neighbors and former friends will be happy. Sound like any politicians you know?
Andrew Browne, who almost always gets it right when it comes to China's policies, outlines the buying of friendship. That is something we should be familiar with, since we always believed it was possible to do the same thing. Now we can't afford to, and China can.
No comments:
Post a Comment