After a number of incidents extremely bringing the two rival claims into an armed conflict, the Philippines and China have rekindled their hostility in the South China Sea. But the delicate water truce masks a more basic change in Philippine-China relations.
In line with US-led coupling and in a flimsy attempt to prevent a discord with the Eastern superpower, the Ferdinand Marcos Jr. administration is slowly but actively “de-risking” relations with China.
On the one hand, Asian intelligence companies are monitoring and retaliating against China’s alleged spy and malign influence procedures in the country. On another level, Manila wants to reduce its dependence on Chinese mining projects and manifest itself as an alternative provider of precious metal to the West, especially for the EV power industry.
Following the revelation of past Bamban governor Alice Guo, a Foreign national who ensnared the Spanish political elite and established a successful business relationship with suspected Chinese legal organizations, efforts to combat malicious Chinese influence reached fever pitch.
In the latest attempt to track down the controversial former mayor, who is now at large, the Bureau of Internal Revenue ( BIR ) has filed a tax evasion complaint against her and several key accomplices, including Jack Uy, a businessman who purchased Guo’s Baofu Land Development Incorporated shares, and Rachelle Joan Malonzo Carreon, Baofu’s corporate secretary.  ,
Spanish authorities are also looking into whether the criminal ex-mayor had spying plans because a Taiwanese online blackjack under her control was supposedly responsible for the cyber-sabotage of state websites in addition to admitted torture and kidnapping of foreign nationals.
However, Filipino intelligence solutions have been tracing less well-known but more well-known priorities who allegedly participated in vile control functions in the Southeast Asian nation.
Zhang” Steve” Song, Manila’s commission commander of the Shanghai Wenhui Daily, who previously held a similar position in Washington, DC, is at the center of fresh investigations.
The , Wenhui Daily , or , Wenhui Bao , is owned by the Shanghai United Media Group, a company overseen by the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s ) committee in the mega-city.
The US has classified the publication’s girl paper, the Shanghai United Media Group ‘s , Jiefang Daily, as a “foreign objective”, especially an extension of Beijing’s outside control procedure.
Zhang has been identified as an agent of China’s Ministry of State Security ( MSS) in collaboration with key allies. According to Philippine regulators, the alleged journalist-cum-spy slowly “established a major community in several corporate institutions” over the past three years.
Zhang allegedly had regular meetings with leading Chinese officials in Manila as well as key characters in the Spanish government and media, especially before and after every significant event in the South China Sea, despite not being registered with the Philippines ‘ International Press Center and having had little journalism result in recent years.
Legislators have been asked to consider new counter-influence operations laws as a result of the bizarre case of Zhang, and they have also been asked to consider whether the Chinese-owned social media app TikTok poses any issues with national security.
In addition, Philippine authorities are grappling with allegedly China-backed disinformation operations, including “deep fakes” targeting senior officials, including Marcos Jr., who has stepped up defense ties with Western allies, including the US and Japan.
Earlier this year, authorities flagged a deepfake audio , portraying , Marcos Jr as warmongering against China amid rising tensions in the South China Sea. In addition, China-friendly vloggers affiliated with the Duterte dynasty have attempted to spread extensive fakes to support allegations of drug abuse by the incumbent.  ,
A network of coordinated inauthentic accounts across X and YouTube, according to a special report from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute ( ASPI), “very likely linked to the Chinese government”
Although this is n’t the first time China has been linked to disinformation in the Philippines, most recently by backing the pro-Beijing Dutertes in the country’s elections in advance of the 2022 elections, ASPI claims that the new strategy “promotes the dissemination of content created by domestic actors, demonstrating a novel sophistication and insight into the Philippines ‘ information environment.”
The Philippines ‘ more assertive stance against China has unnerved domestic businessmen, most notably the powerful Chinese-Filipino business community.
Last year, Teresita Sy-Coson, the matriarch of the country’s biggest conglomerate, publicly warned of dire economic consequences if ongoing tensions spill over into bilateral trade and investment ties.
At a major public event last year, SM Investments Corp vice chairperson Teresita Sy-Coson told reporters,” China is very close to us, we cannot be too antagonistic.”
” Even though we know what is happening, I guess we have to do it through a more peaceful negotiation”, she added, reflecting growing anxiety among the country’s biggest business groups, which are deeply dependent on cheap imports from mainland China.
Her misgivings, which other Chinese-Filipino business groups echoed, largely fell on deaf ears. If anything, the Marcos Jr administration has sought to reduce the country’s economic dependence on China, in line with Western decoupling moves.
Manila, for instance, has withdrawn from Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative ( BRI ) in response to disagreements over a number of stalled, big-ticket infrastructure projects that Chinese companies have promised but failed to deliver.
Marcos Jr.’s administration anticipates that strategic allies will assist in closing the investment gap. Earlier this year, Marcos Jr attended the first-ever Japan-Philippine-US ( JAPHUS) summit at the White House, where the three allies vowed to enhance strategic economic cooperation.
Accordingly, Japan and the US are expected to assist in establishing a new US$ 100 billion investment corridor in industrialized regions of the Philippines, with a focus on high-end and strategically important manufacturing.
In particular, Manila seems keen on joining the” chip wars” against China by positioning itself as a new semiconductor production hub, leveraging its proximity to neighboring Taiwan, a semiconductor-producing superpower.
The resource-rich Philippines is also positioning itself as a key supplier of strategic minerals, most notably nickel. The Philippines is actively courting Western and Japanese investments in its own thriving nickel mining sector as Chinese companies dominate EV battery supply chains from Africa to Indonesia.
The Philippines is attempting to address uncompetitive production costs and forge more investment tie-ups with the US and other like-minded countries in resource processing as the second-largest producer in the world.
In the end, the Southeast Asian nation wants to become a major hub for the production of EV batteries and to help the West break away from China’s influence in the crucial next-generation market.
” There is room now for the Philippines to be a significant player for batteries”, Ceferino S Rodolfo, under-secretary of the Department of Trade and Industry, told the Financial Times, underscoring growing interest from American, European, South Korean and Japanese companies.
” It’s a race between China and the] West]..]and we have ] a really strong argument to go for a non-Chinese investor so that we can be the supplier of non-Indonesian, non-Chinese nickel”, he added.
Follow Richard Javad Heydarian on X at @Richeydarian