Open Letter To: H.E. Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China

Amb. Albert del Rosario Former Secretary of Foreign Affairs Chairman of the Stratbase ADR Institute   Excellency, In recalling our bilateral meeting years ago in Beijing, please allow me to extend to you our warm welcome to the Philippines. Your visit underscores the future of the relationship between the Philippines and China. Our peoples have… Read More

Call for ASEAN action for a rules-based order

Dindo Manhit, President of the Stratbase ADR Institute Two weeks ahead of the 33rd ASEAN summit, the Chinese Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang confirmed that China has begun operating a maritime observation center, a meteorological observatory and a national environmental and air quality monitoring stations on its artificial islands in the Spratly islands. While Malacañang refused to… Read More

With Xi Jinping’s visit, will Duterte reap the fruit of appeasing China?

Dr. Renato de Castro, Trustee and Convenor of the National Security and East Asian Affairs Program of the Stratbase ADR Institute After more than two years of waiting, Chinese President Xi Jinping will be visiting the Philippines in November. President Rodrigo Duterte invited him to the Philippines when they first met in Beijing in October… Read More

Vietnam fostering ties with the Philippines amid rapprochement with China

Dr. Renato de Castro, Trustee and Convenor of the National Security and East Asian Affairs Program of the Stratbase ADR Institute In August 2018, President Duterte conveyed to his countrymen that he expected China would be fair on the South China Sea dispute and that they should accept Beijing as a good neighbor. He told… Read More

Continuing struggle to craft democracy through elections

Claudette Guevara, Deputy Executive Director for Programs of Stratbase ADR Institute and Secretary-General of Democracy Watch Philippines We have a deeply rooted, overwhelming governance problem. What surveys show as the citizen’s waxing and waning support for the national leadership has a continuously dark undertone — the people have a generalized distrust of government. This is… Read More

China’s South China Sea End Game: Implications and Next Steps

China’s South China Sea End Game: Implications and Next Steps by United States Navy Capt. (Ret.) Carl O. Schuster China’s ongoing actions in the South China Sea belie its promises of the last five years.  Its Foreign Ministry announced in 2013 that its suppression of non-Chinese fishermen was to protect the region’s sensitive marine environment. Since then, it… Read More

Navigating a new chapter in the US-Philippines’ ‘Long Friendship’

Dr. Patrick M. Cronin, Senior Director, and Kristine Lee, Research Associate, with the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) in Washington, D.C. In the Philippines, nearly a year after President Trump first sketched his Free and Open Indo-Pacific policy at the 2017 APEC CEO Summit, uncertainty about how the… Read More