Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana (Photo courtest of IISS)
MANILA, Philippines —— The Philippines is “walking on a tightrope” between rival superpowers the United States and China, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said on Saturday.
“We deal with it very delicately… Our president said it’s a slippery slope to navigate between two superpowers, considering that we are right smack in some of the disputes and flashpoints in Southeast Asia,” he said at the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s premier security summit in Singapore, in what could be his last appearance as defense chief.
Under President Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines’ relationship with its oldest treaty ally, the United States, faced setbacks as he pursued closer ties with China in exchange for loans and economic aid that barely materialized, with days away from the end of his presidency.
The Indo-Pacific region has become a battleground for influence between the United States and China in recent years and this was more pronounced at the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue where all eyes were on US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and his Chinese counterpart Wei Fenghe.
The South China Sea has also been at the center of the strategic rivalry between Washington and Beijing. The US is not a claimant but said it was important to its national interests and claimants should pursue their interests in accordance with international law.
China claims the entire South China Sea, including the West Philippine Sea. The Philippines, China, Brunei, Vietnam, Taiwan and Malaysia have overlapping maritime claims in these waters.
An international arbitral tribunal ruled in 2016 to invalidate Beijing’s fictitious claims within its so-called nine-dash line, but Beijing refuses to recognize the ruling and has even become increasingly assertive in recent years.
Lorenzana said they held dialogues with Chinese leaders and worked out a “modus vivendi” on the South China Sea.
“We have realized, we have accepted that in the South China Sea, there are conflicting claims, but ours is stronger because of the Unclos (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea) and the arbitral award, while China claims they own the place through historical claims,” he said.
Hectic schedule
Lorenzana mainly discussed “military modernization and new defense capabilities” at one of the summit’s plenary sessions, where he emphasized the need for international regulation on the use of cyber capabilities, quantum computing technology, and other new forms of inventions for offensive and disruptive purposes.
The recent weeks had been packed for the 73-year-old Lorenzana, who passed out at Independence Day rites at Rizal Park on Sunday morning likely due to fatigue. He is now “in stable condition” and has been advised to rest.
The outgoing defense chief returned from Singapore shortly after midnight on Sunday before he headed to the Independence Day event.
Defense spokesperson Arsenio Andolong said the defense chief might have passed out due to his “hectic schedule during the last few weeks and extreme temperatures in Luneta.”
Lorenzana was also in South Korea recently, and other parts of the Philippines as part of his farewell visits. He has also been “overseeing the defense operations of the country and transition to a new administration.”
“The fatigue from my recent successive international security engagements may have taken its toll on me. Then it was so hot at Luneta this morning. But as the saying goes, a true soldier always gets up quickly after a fall,” Lorenzana later wrote on Facebook.
“I’m fine now. Just resting since the results of the tests conducted earlier are okay,” he said.
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