It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Thursday, February 16, 2023
Will Electric Vehicles Continue To Thrive Without Subsidies?
Sales of electric vehicles in Germany have fallen after subsidies were reduced.
Politicians have used subsidies to fuel electric vehicle sales, but governments can’t afford to keep the subsidies in place forever.
Electric vehicles also pose a problem for aging power grids, which, if not updated, will not be able to support a full transition.
Sales in Germany plunged after subsidies were reduced...
Sales of fully electric vehicles (EVs) fell 13.2% in January compared to January 2022, Germany’s Motor Transport Authority reports. Sales of hybrids declined 6.2%. This compares to an increase of 3.5% in the number of new gasoline-powered cars sold, and a modest decline of 1.2% for diesel.
The main explanation is the end of Berlin’s subsidies for EVs and hybrids at the new year. Until December the subsidy had offered up to €9,000 split between consumer and producer for EVs with a net list price below €40,000. Hybrids in that price range received €6,750. Berlin has ditched the subsidy for hybrids entirely, and cut the payout to €4,500 for EVs below €40,000.
This year will thus be a market test for electric vehicle demand in the Vatican of climate-change belief. Politicians in the West have used subsidies and mandates to drive EV sales, no matter that they aren’t as green as their advertising. The cars are only as carbon-friendly to operate as the power grids they refuel from, and Berlin’s refusal to embrace nuclear power means Germany is burning more coal to cover for the end of natural-gas imports from Russia. Then there’s the environmental cost of mining for all that cobalt, copper and lithium for EVs and their batteries.
If consumers want to buy EVs, go for it. But what does it say about their appeal if people need subsidies to buy them?
Can the Power Grid Handle a Wave of New Electric Vehicles?
Experts believe EVs will make up a third or even half of all light vehicles sold annually in the U.S. by 2030, up from about 7% in 2022.
If those predictions are correct, that leaves a big question: Will the power grid be capable of charging the batteries in those tens of millions of vehicles?
Some grid operators already are struggling to keep up with demand in certain areas and at certain times—California power authorities, for example, asked residents to avoid charging electric cars in the evening during a heat wave last September to help avoid overloading the grid, while utility officials in other areas have warned at times of possible rolling blackouts to prevent system collapses.
First, the good news: Many experts think the utility industry will be ready to generate enough power for the coming EV wave, thanks to planned capacity increases costing hundreds of billions of dollars.
But that isn’t the whole story. The potential for much more serious bottlenecks looms in the local legs of the grid that transmit electricity to individual homes and businesses. Expensive upgrades could be needed for these neighborhood power-distribution systems. Additional spending will be needed to bolster the wires and transformers serving commercial sites as electric trucks and delivery vans become common.
Combined, all these investments likely would result in higher electric rates, many industry analysts say. “The more they invest in the grid, the more those costs go back to consumers,” says Brad Stansberry, U.S. energy advisory leader at audit and consulting firm KPMG.
Let that last sentence paragraph in. Utilities will have to spend a lot of money to add capacity. It will cost even more if the capacity is a clean energy input source.
Cleaner energy will eventually come from solar, but how do we get that energy to Chicago? At what price?
I still wonder how the heck an evacuation of Florida happens when everyone needs to drive hundreds of miles to escape a hurricane.
Are you convinced we have enough lithium, nickel, and other materials to make enough batteries? I am not. The more EVs we do build, the more metals we need. At what cost, and at how much pollution mining them?
Distance and Convenience
For me, it's all about distance and convenience.
It's convenient to charge at home, provided you don't go anywhere. I dive long distances and to the middle of nowhere frequently.
It is not so convenient to have to stop whatever you are doing to charge a vehicle (assuming you can find a charger in the middle of nowhere) or to rent a car if you want to drive five hours straight.
While green hydrogen has received plenty of attention recently, pink hydrogen has been largely overlooked until now.
In 2021, low-emissions hydrogen production accounted for less than 1 percent of hydrogen output worldwide due to its high costs compared to grey and blue hydrogen.
Nuclear power has been gaining traction as governments focus on energy security, and as nuclear capacity rises we should see pink hydrogen production climb as well.
Everyone’s been talking about green hydrogen as a potential gas and fuel replacement as the world transitions away from fossil fuels. But one alternative, pink hydrogen, produced using nuclear power, has been largely overlooked. Governments worldwide are once again discussing nuclear power, with plans to construct several new power plants around the globe. This is largely in response to the Russia-Ukraine conflict and resulting energy insecurity, which has demonstrated the world’s ongoing reliance on a few select powers for their oil and gas needs. Many countries are looking to become more self-sufficient when it comes to energy, with a wider array of renewable energy options now on the table. So, could pink hydrogen be one of the major power sources of the future?
In recent years, companies have been racing to develop green hydrogen projects, to remain competitive, as more countries look for alternatives to natural gas, diesel, and jet fuel. Green hydrogen is widely seen as a renewable energy source that has the potential to replace fossil fuels as it can be applied for a number of uses. While grey and blue hydrogen use natural gas in the production process, green hydrogen relies on electrolysis powered by renewable energy sources, where water is split into hydrogen and oxygen. In contrast, pink hydrogen is produced using nuclear power, also making it carbon-free, although not technically green due to the classification of nuclear energy as non-renewable.
At present, most hydrogen production continues to rely on natural gas, as green hydrogen operations are extremely expensive to run in comparison. In 2021, low-emissions hydrogen production accounted for less than 1 percent of hydrogen output worldwide, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Rachael Rothman, the co-director of the Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures at the University of Sheffield, believes pink hydrogen could offer a much-needed alternative to green hydrogen, supporting a more rapid expansion of the industry.
Rothman explained, “If you split ... water, you get hydrogen and oxygen.” She added, “But splitting water takes energy, so what pink hydrogen is about is splitting water using energy that has come from nuclear.” Therefore, “the whole system is low carbon, because … there’s no carbon in water … but also the energy source is also very low carbon because it’s nuclear.”
In the U.K., EDF Energy is discussing the idea of pink hydrogen production at its recently approved 3.2 GW Sizewell C nuclear plant. EDF states on its website, “At Sizewell C, we are exploring how we can produce and use hydrogen in several ways.” “Firstly, it could help lower emissions during the construction of the power station.” And “Secondly, once Sizewell C is operational, we hope to use some of the heat it generates (alongside electricity) to make hydrogen more efficiently,” it adds. The firm believes that hydrogen produced using nuclear power will play a major role in the energy transition.
In the U.S., the Department of Energy (DoE) is investing billions to help reduce the costs and increase the scale of clean hydrogen, looking to the country’s nuclear plants to support production. Traditional and advanced nuclear reactors can provide the constant heat and electricity required to produce low-emissions hydrogen. The DoE believes this could also help garner support for the development of new nuclear plants. It is estimated that a 1,000-MW reactor could support the production of 150,000 tonnes of hydrogen a year. This hydrogen could be used for fertilisers, oil refining, steel production, material handling equipment, fuel cell vehicles, and carbon-neutral synthetic fuels.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has developed a Hydrogen Economic Evaluation Program(HEEP) to support the development of pink hydrogen projects worldwide. It is a free tool that assesses the economies of large-scale pink hydrogen production. Meanwhile, the Nuclear Energy Agency, the Nuclear Energy Institute, the Idaho National Laboratory, the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation, the IAEA, and non-government members from Canada, Finland, France, Japan, Korea, the UAE, the UK, the US, contributed to the 2022Nuclear-Hydrogen Digest: Nuclear Energy in the Hydrogen Economy to encourage the development of more pink hydrogen projects.
The major benefits of nuclear power use in hydrogen production include driving down production costs and reducing emissions. For pink hydrogen production, electricity would be generated using nuclear power to electrolyze water. While green hydrogen is produced using renewables at a 20 percent to 40 percent capacity factor, pink hydrogen would use nuclear power at a capacity factor of 90 percent, thereby reducing costs. Further, the carbon footprint of pink hydrogen is thought to be similar to that of green hydrogen using renewables.
Despite little talk about pink hydrogen at present, we are likely to see a significant rise in nuclear-powered hydrogen projects in the coming years, as governments once again look to increase their nuclear energy capacity as part of a green transition. Pink hydrogen will likely gain traction in much the same way as green hydrogen has, as energy firms and governments worldwide look for fossil fuel alternatives, with hydrogen being a versatile fuel for a variety of applications.
European Demand Is Set To Dominate LNG Trade In The Long Term
The significantly higher demand for liquefied natural gas in Europe is set to intensify competition with Asia in the short term and to dominate LNG trade in the longer term, Shell said in its annual LNG outlook on Thursday.
European countries, including the UK, saw their LNG imports jump by 60% last year, to 121 million tons, Shell, the world’s largest LNG trader, said as it issued a bullish outlook on the fuel through 2040.
Global LNG trade hit 396 million tons last year, an increase of 16 million tons compared to 2021.
The surge in Europe’s imports in 2022 was facilitated by a 15-million-ton, or 19%, decline in China’s imports due to the zero-Covid policy, and a marked drop in South Asia’s LNG imports due to the high prices, Shell said.
At the same time, Europe’s pipeline gas imports from Russia slumped by 53% in 2022 compared to 2021.
“The war in Ukraine has had far-reaching impacts on energy security around the world and caused structural shifts in the market that are likely to impact the global LNG industry over the long term,” Steve Hill, Shell’s Executive Vice President for Energy Marketing, said in a statement.
LNG could become a core energy supply for Europe to meet energy security needs, while China could increasingly provide more flexibility to the global LNG market, the supermajor said.
Through the mid-2020s, that is over the next two years, the global LNG market will remain tight as Europe and Asia compete for limited new LNG supply, the supermajor said.
New supply – especially from Qatar and the United States – is set to hit the market in 2025-2026. Around 80% of new LNG supply by 2030 will come from those two major LNG exporters, Shell noted.
However, the supermajor warned that another supply-demand gap could be looming in the late 2020s without new investment in additional supply.
Glencore will hand out over £5.8bn ($7bn) to shareholders in dividends and buybacks after the commodities giant posted another period of bumper revenues and profits powered by its coal and trading divisions.
Glencore announced it will make a record payout to shareholders of $5.1bn dividend, a top up payment of $500m and buyback of $1.5bn.
Revenues have soared 26 percent to $255.9bn, while core profits climbed 60 percent to a record $34.1bn, which included $18.6bn from the energy business that features coal production.
Overall, profit on metals and fossil fuels trading hit a record $6.4bn in 2022, up 73 per cent on the year before.
Glencore has been one of the biggest winners from the chaos in commodity markets caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The commodity giant mines battery metals copper, nickel, and cobalt – key minerals for the future green transition and ramp up of electric cars.
Glencore is looking to deplete its coal mines in Colombia, Australia and South Africa producing 100m tonnes per year by the mid-2040s rather than spinning them off, as other miners have done.
Prices of thermal coal climbed to all-time highs last year, and remain historically elevated even as mild weather has eased demand.
Meanwhile, its sprawling trading business has benefited from sharp price swings and dislocations across the world.
It has also cut back net debt from $6bn at the end of 2021 to $75m by the end of the year.
Glencore’s chief executive Gary Nagle argued that commodity prices had benefitted from volatility, creating a high price environment for the company to benefit from.
He said: “The global pandemic, recovery from it and years of underinvestment, followed by conflict in Europe, exposed pre-existing vulnerabilities in energy security and supply chains, underpinning the generally high and volatile 2022 commodity price environment, which enabled the group to generate record profitability for the year.”
Glencore’s share price, which rose 50% last year, .
IRA IS PROTECTIONISM
Biden Administration Pushes A Made-In-America EV Charging Network
The Biden Administration on Wednesday announced actions to significantly expand the U.S. electric vehicle charger network to support its EV sales goals and back the Made-in-America manufacturing of components for charging stations.
The latest set of actions is expected to help the Administration’s EV sales goals by building a national network of 500,000 electric vehicle chargers along America’s highways and in communities and have EVs make up at least 50% of new car sales by 2030.
Under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, $7.5 billion will be invested in EV charging, $10 billion in clean transportation, and more than $7 billion in EV battery components, critical minerals, and materials, the White House said today.
Effective immediately, all EV chargers funded through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law must be built in the United States, according to Wednesday’s rules. The plan requires that—effective immediately—final assembly and all manufacturing processes for any iron or steel charger enclosures or housing occur in the United States. And by July 2024, at least 55% of the cost of all components will need to be manufactured domestically as well.
In addition, the U.S. Department of Energy today announced $7.4 million in funding for seven projects to develop medium-and heavy-duty EV charging and hydrogen corridor infrastructure plans, the Administration said.
Under the new actions, Tesla will open – for the first time – part of its U.S. Supercharger and Destination Charger network to non-Tesla EVs, making at least 7,500 chargers available for all EVs by the end of 2024.
In addition, Hertz and BP announced their intention to build out a national network of EV fast-charging infrastructure to accelerate the adoption of EVs. BP aims to invest $1 billion in EV charging in the United States by 2030, while Hertz targets to make one-quarter of its fleet electric by the end of 2024. Several other EV charging partnerships were announced, including such involving GM and Ford, among others.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
One Of The World’s Hottest Oil Plays Prepares For New Auction
Guyana, one of the world’s hottest frontier oil plays, is expected to have its new oil production sharing agreement (PSA) model ready in time for its auction that runs through mid-April, according to Guyana’s VP.
The oil and gas industry has been eagerly waiting for Guyana to draft new contract terms that have been a long time in coming after Guyana made it clear that oil companies wouldn’t be getting what it considered to be a sweetheart deal like the Exxon consortium did.
Guyana expects the new contract model to be available to share with prospective bidders sometime late next month or early in Q2.
The April auction will see 14 of Guyana’s oil and gas exploration blocks put on offer, and could double Guyana’s offshore area currently being explored.
Guyana’s VP told energy conference attendees on Tuesday that Guyana could also allocate additional blocks to Brazil, Qatar, and India through bilateral agreements, and Guyana has already been in talks with the UAE and the UK.
The Exxon-led consortium that includes Hess and CNOOC told Reuters that it wasn’t planning on adding to its territory in Guyana until it is given the opportunity to review the terms.
While the auction closes on April 14, the blocks will be awarded to successful bidders sometime later in the second quarter. While companies can bid on as many blocks as they’d like, a maximum of three blocks will be awarded to any one company.
Guyana is thought to contain as much as 25 billion barrels of oil resources—part of which have already helped the country increase its gross domestic product by more than 50% last year from the year prior.
Barclays Vows To Stop Financing Oil Sands Projects
Barclays on Wednesday said it would no longer provide financing to oil sands companies or oil sands projects and tightened conditions for thermal coal lending in an updated policy, which fell short of announcing overall pledges or targets in funding oil and gas.
In the annual report for 2022 published today, the UK-based banking giant vowed not to provide financing for any oil sands projects, compared to a previous policy which stated that it would only provide financing to oil sands exploration and production clients that had projects to materially reduce their overall emissions intensity.
In coal lending, Barclays now aims to phase out financing to clients engaged in coal-fired power generation in the EU and OECD by 2030, compared to phasing out such lending only to clients in the UK and the EU in the previously announced policy.
Commenting on Barclays’ new targets, Jeanne Martin, Head of Banking Programme at ShareAction, said in a statement, “Disappointingly, despite not having published a new oil and gas policy for the last three years, the bank’s fracking policy remains unchanged and there is no mention of new oil and gas. This means Barclays continues to be out of step with current minimum standards of ambition within the industry.”
Pressured by ESG trends and shareholders, other banks have already started to announce cuts to lending to the oil and gas industry.
At the end of last year, two prominent banks in Europe vowed to significantly cut exposure to the fossil fuels sector. Credit Agricole, the largest retail lender in France, said in early December that it targets to have no new financing granted for oil extraction projects by 2025, and to cut its oil exploration and production exposure by 25% by 2025 compared to 2020.
Banking giant HSBC announced in December that it would stop funding new oil and gas field developments and related infrastructure as part of a policy to support and finance a net-zero transition.
Following HSBC’s pledge, the pressure is now on U.S. banks to halt funding for new oil and gas projects, RAN and other climate community groups said.
U.S. banks are the biggest funders of fossil fuel projects in the world and “are still refusing to make real commitments on climate,” the environmental groups added.
Unpacking China's "Win-Win" Promises in the S. China Sea
If the Marcos administration is committed to upholding its South China Sea claims in the face of Chinese revanchism, it cannot grow too comfortable with Beijing’s ‘cooperation’ approach.
On January 4, Chinese President Xi Jinping clasped hands with his Philippine counterpart under very different circumstances from the last time he welcomed a Philippine leader to Beijing.
During that September 2019 visit, which Xi hailed as a ‘milestone’, Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, told a crowd in the Great Hall of the People: ‘I’ve realigned myself in your ideological flow’ and ‘I announce my separation from the United States’.
Almost four years later, China’s incessant bullying and unsafe brinksmanship towards the Philippines and other Southeast Asian nations over rival claims and privileges in the South China Sea have scuttled Duterte’s era of good feelings and drawn Manila even closer to Washington. Before landing in Beijing, Marcos admitted that ‘maritime issues … do not comprise the entirety of our relations’ but emphasized that saber-rattling in the South China Sea remained a ‘significant concern.’
Practicing the art of the geopolitical pivot, Xi largely side-stepped the South China Sea conflict during his meeting with Marcos and doubled down on previous promises of greater economic interdependence. A slew of initiatives emerged from the summit, including joint oil and gas development projects, renewable energy investment, increased trade and a crisis hotline to resolve maritime disputes.
This course correction towards calmer seas underpins Beijing’s decision to rehabilitate relations with Manila and other neighbors by reverting to its old narrative of non-interference and inter-Asian ‘cooperation’. Recent actions and statements, like a pledge that China would never use its military might to ‘bully’ smaller nations, reflect China’s acknowledgment that its decade-long pugnacious campaign to dominate the South China Sea has done more harm than good. By embracing ‘peaceful outcomes’, Beijing seeks to recast itself as a regional force for good, a hegemon that can spread economic growth and ensure Asian affairs are settled by Asian countries—not ‘aggressive’ foreigners like the US.
In doing so, this kinder, gentler China pledges to embrace cooperation, not confrontation, benevolence not belligerence, in pursuit of ‘win–win outcomes’. These outcomes, according to the Global Times, will usher in a ‘new golden age’ in Sino-Philippine relations. But as the saying goes, all that glitters is not gold. If the Marcos administration is committed to upholding its South China Sea claims in the face of Chinese revanchism, it cannot grow too comfortable with Beijing’s ‘cooperation’ approach.
China has pressed its expansive maritime sovereignty claims in the South China Sea since the late 1940s; it wasn’t until the early 2010s that these claims (often unfounded) gained a sharp set of teeth. In accordance with Xi’s ‘national rejuvenation’ goal, Xi-era Chinese military doctrine stresses control of the ‘near seas’, which these sovereignty claims support.
‘Near seas’ control offers manifold benefits. It would enable China to actualize its anti-access/area-denial concept, solidify power projection throughout the first island chain, and raise the counter-intervention risk calculus for Washington and its allies, all while expanding a security buffer zone to protect the mainland. In addition, unrivaled ‘near seas’ (or South China Sea) control legitimizes access to vast and untapped natural resources while safeguarding critical sea lines of communication, which China’s leadership believes could be threatened in a conflict with the West.
Yet after a decade of dredging disputed reefs into military bases, forcing sovereignty showdowns, sinking fishing vessels, harassing survey and resupply vessels, and touting its sovereignty over nine-tenths of the South China Sea, China’s ‘sea control’ campaign has come at a steep geostrategic cost.
In Manila alone, the security establishment has mounted a fierce resistance to China’s maritime encroachments, even pressuring Duterte to reverse rapprochement with China and rescind plans to slacken ties with the US military. The same goes for other Southeast Asian nations. According to the 2022 State of Southeast Asia survey report, which gauges Southeast Asian leaders’ temperature on a range of regional policy issues, only 26.8% of respondents trusted China to ‘do the right thing’. Of those respondents who didn’t trust China, half of them attributed it to China using its economic and military power ‘to threaten my country’s interests and sovereignty’. Concurrently, some ASEAN countries have distanced themselves from Beijing by strengthening partnerships within ASEAN and with the Quad alliance. Other states, like Malaysia, have increased their defense budgets to protect their South China Sea territory.
China’s renewed goodwill campaign should not be taken at face value. Cooperation doesn’t mean China will bury its ambitious South China Sea interests. It means China will try pursuing those interests peacefully to quell tensions until it can no longer achieve those interests without reverting to an aggressive posture—just like the last time it swapped ‘win–win’ cooperation for win–lose brinkmanship.
The Philippines will then find itself between a reef and a hard place. China will likely offer savory economic carrots to Manila. In exchange, it may seek Manila’s tacit approval to militarize Scarborough Reef, remove the embarked marine detachment on Second Thomas Shoal, or permit Chinese hydrocarbon survey and drilling operations in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone, thus making it neither exclusive nor economically beneficial.
But Chinese control of the South China Sea is not a foregone conclusion, despite what Duterte believed. Beijing has already adjusted its risk calculus when the price of international opprobrium outweighed the benefits of maritime belligerence. The Philippines, ASEAN nations and the Quad alliance can continue imposing and signaling that cost. It will require the usual antidote of hard-power prescriptions: jets, corvettes, patrol boats, littoral craft and missiles.
Holding Chinese warships and activities at risk, however, demands more than just a platform and a weapon. The missile must be capable of striking the target. Quad partners should begin integrating the Philippines (and other willing countries) into parts of the Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness to provide improved joint awareness, information-sharing and targeting solutions. Quad leaders should also offer economic programs to counterpoise China’s overtures.
Already, Marcos’s decision this month to grant the US temporary and rotational access to four military bases and resume joint maritime patrols in the South China Sea was a wise one because it will help strengthen the Philippines’ defense capabilities, interoperability with allies and commitment to resisting Beijing’s aggressive maritime behavior. More of that cooperation and coordination is needed, although Marcos has made it clear that the burgeoning US–Philippine military ties pose no direct threat to China, despite being a direct response to China’s militarization and disruption of the South China Sea.
For now, Marcos is right to balance China and the West with economic agreements for the former and military pacts with the latter. Frank, clear dialogue can cool tensions. But all parties interested in upholding a rules-based order in the South China Sea must keep fielding an appropriate defense of that order, regardless of what ‘win–win outcomes’ China may promise. Then, and only then, can everybody win.
Nick Danby is an intelligence officer in the US Navy, where he is assigned to a forward-deployed carrier strike group based out of Japan. The views expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the position of the US Navy or US Department of Defense.
This article appears courtesy of The Strategist and may be found in its original form here.
The opinions expressed herein are the author's and not necessarily those of The Maritime Executive.
Opinion: China's Fumbles in S. China
Sea Boost U.S.-Philippine Ties
To understand why the warming US–Philippines relationship is China’s own doing, it is helpful to look back to the foreign policy stance of Ferdinand Marcos’ populist predecessor.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. meets with U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Jr., February 2023. The two announced a new U.S. basing agreement during Austin's visit to the Philippines (U.S. Secretary of Defense)
The Philippines recently granted the United States access to four more military bases, reportedly including at least one strategic location facing Taiwan. It’s an agreement sealed less than a year into the first term of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr – a decision compelled by China’s own behaviour.
To depict Marcos’ approach towards the United States as a mere reversal of former president Rodrigo Duterte’s China policy would be short-sighted. A more appropriate characterisation of the reset in US–Philippines relations would be to look at it as a consequential evolution of Duterte’s foreign policy legacy.
To understand why the warming US–Philippines relationship is China’s own doing, it is helpful to look back to the foreign policy stance of Marcos’ populist predecessor.
In 2016, China had a promising window of opportunity to keep the Philippines within its sphere of influence, with Duterte flipping the Philippines’ pro-American status quo upside down soon after his election. His tradition-breaking foreign policy pivot towards China officially kicked off right when Manila won its case against Beijing in an international tribunal in The Hague over the latter’s sweeping maritime claims in the West Philippine Sea (the name the Philippines government calls certain parts of the South China Sea). The daring policy decision did not come without legitimacy challenges but was largely muffled by Duterte’s popularity and political dominance over the three branches of government.
The pursuit of trade, aid and economic interests was the subtext of Duterte’s China policy. His flagship Build, Build, Build Program was a massive US$160-billion infrastructure undertaking that demanded more resources than were then available from existing economic partners. China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was a promising resource for Duterte’s infrastructure ambitions.
Under Duterte’s predecessor – the late president Benigno Aquino III, who took China to court over South China Sea claims – Chinese funding was largely inaccessible. So to woo China, Duterte needed to stage a loud, scandalous divorce drama with the United States. He pursued this by cursing former US president Barack Obama over his comments on Duterte’s harsh anti-drugs campaign, and repeatedly threatening to terminate and eventually abrogate the Visiting Forces Agreement.
Decoupling from the United States was an easy task for Duterte who has long held an anti-American worldview, aggravated by US criticism of the strongman’s murderous war on drugs.
China’s President Xi Jinping reciprocated with a warm welcome for Duterte during a “milestone” visit to Beijing soon after the Filipino president’s election. Pledges were made, and some projects commenced. However, many of the pledges remained promises.
Fast forward to 2022, Duterte stepped down from office with disappointing dividends from his attempts to benefit from BRI. Beijing refused to cease harassing Filipino fisherfolk operating within the contested waters and even expanded its militarisation of the artificial islands in South China Sea.
Duterte’s experience showed that China is proving to be an unreliable partner. And signs of a widening chasm between China and the Philippines were abundant in the former president’s last year in office, which also marked the beginning of US-Philippines realignment. Washington poured in resources to Manila. The Philippines was the largest recipient of US military assistance in the Indo-Pacific region. Duterte in July 2021 restored VFA after a visit by US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin. The Philippines’ Defence chief Delfin Lorenzana was back in Pentagon a month before the elections won by Marcos.
Beijing left Marcos with little choice but to break away further. China ignored the Philippines’ pending loan applications even after Manila relayed an ultimatum. Incidents of Chinese aggression against the Philippine Navy and some fisher vessels happened within Marcos’ first few months.
In a further sign the shift cannot be all down to a change of administration, Marcos’ key defence and foreign policy architects are Duterte-appointed officials retained or reassigned into allied positions. Duterte’s ambassador to the United States also continued in the role. Marcos’ Defense chief was first appointed by Duterte as Armed Forces chief in 2018 and later as peace adviser and vaccine czar. The largely American-trained Philippine Armed Forces played a countervailing role in Duterte’s China policymaking.
It would not be surprising if the internal workings of the recent US agreements signed less than a year since Marcos took office actually began in the concluding months of Duterte.
To mend the policy fumble, Beijing will need to do more than just increasing, and even making good on, the overdue BRI pledges. Marcos appears to prioritise ensuring political legitimacy over daring policies.
Marcos has so far displayed a risk-averse decision-making style. None of this is much of a surprise. He chose to take on rather than discard the system built by his predecessor, whose daughter, Sarah Duterte, is next in line. A misstep might just cost Marcos his seat.
Makoi Popioco worked for CNN and other media outlets in the Philippines, and reported on infrastructure, human rights, security and geopolitics.
This article appears courtesy of The Lowy Interpreter and may be found in its original form here.
The opinions expressed herein are the author's and not necessarily those of The Maritime Executive.
