Culture, conflict, diplomacy and the West Philippine Sea

BY ANTONIO CONTRERAS       MAY 07, 2019

FOR many, culture is a peripheral issue in conflict and diplomacy. When one speaks of cultural diplomacy, the image that quickly comes to mind is tourism and international relations. In fact, cultural diplomacy is broadly defined in the context of soft power, where a government uses culture to entice nationals from other countries to have a positive view of its people, culture and policies. This is why cultural diplomacy is predominantly focused on image-building, and on social marketing. It actively sells images and representations about a country’s people and scenes, and the overall ambience of a place that is worthy of being trusted. Broadly speaking, selling sights, sounds and tastes to a foreign audience becomes a venue for confidence-building.

However, culture is not like instant noodles that you simply douse with boiling water for it to be cooked. It is a complex array of symbols, images, representations and meaning systems that are built over long periods of time. And the way citizens of a country would image other countries is largely a function of history and of how that other country has presented itself in their worldviews and imaginations.

It is in this context that one needs to understand the way ordinary people look at the issue of the West Philippine Sea in the context of how the ordinary Filipino looks at China and the United States. Conversely, it is important to understand how the Philippines is likewise perceived by the ordinary citizens of these countries.

In an SWS survey released in March, the United States was the most trusted country by Filipinos with a net trust rating of +60. Other countries that received positive net trust ratings were Japan with a +34 and Australia with a +31.

On the other hand, China obtained a net trust rating of -7 percent, which is actually an improvement from its -16 percent rating in September of last year. It should be pointed out that China obtained a positive net trust rating only in 9 out of the 45 times similar surveys were taken since 1994. The worst rating was a -46 percent obtained in September of 2015.

It is easy to understand how the ordinary Filipino would have a positive attitude towards the United States. This would be deeply rooted on the colonial mental constructs which ordinary Pinoys would hold towards anything American, from its popular culture to its government policies.

What is interesting, however, is the fact that despite the absence of any adverse colonial encounter with China as an occupying force, and while Chinese influences are as solidly embedded in the habitus and cultural landscapes of Filipinos, from food to popular culture, China as a country remains not worthy of trust by ordinary Filipinos, even perhaps by those that bear Chinese surnames or have Chinese ancestry. In the absence of a systematic scientific study of this phenomenon, one can only offer several educated guesses to explain this cognitive dissonance. It is certainly perplexing that tens of thousands of Filipinos died at the hands of American and Japanese occupying forces in separate periods in our history, and none did so in a Chinese invasion, and yet decades after, Filipinos trust the US and Japan more than China.

Historically, one can possibly attribute this mistrust to how China has been associated with communism, and that the red scare became so deeply embedded in the collective psyche of the Filipino people. It is ironic that the anti-communist attitude that became the foundation of an anti-China sentiment festers among ordinary people, many of whom are also pro-Duterte supporters. Meanwhile, the left-leaning opposition groups, most of whom adhere to Maoist doctrines, have also lately expressed an anti-China stance, thereby diminishing the potency for sustaining the use of ideology as a basis for explaining the culture of mistrust prevailing among ordinary Filipinos. If at all, China is no longer imaged, at least by the intellectual elites and activists, as a communist country, but simply as an authoritarian, capitalist superpower. However, the stereotype that it is still governed by the kind of communism that scared Filipinos during the Cold War remains strong among ordinary Filipinos.

Foreign development assistance has become the means by which former occupying forces like the US and Japan have repaid their historical debts to the country, through massive inflows of loans and grants. China has embarked on this too, with its own Belt and Road Initiative. However, what is interesting is that in an age where the image of a colonial power invading other countries has become a thing of the past, China is now painted by its critics — and with good reason citing the case of Sri Lanka — as one that is showing an aggressive stance in using debt trap diplomacy to acquire territory from other countries.

It has been propagated in popular Chinese media that the Philippines is the one seen as stealing land from China. For many ordinary Chinese nationals, it would not be farfetched to assume that they regard the Philippines is a mere province of China.

On the other hand, the popular cultural representation of China among ordinary Filipinos is seen no longer in pancit or siopao, or Chow King, or in Ongpin, or in the rich Taipans, but as an invading force now actually swarming the seas around Pag-Asa, or as illegal Chinese workers now crowding out not only work opportunities but also the real estate space available for Filipinos.

Filipinos trust the US and Japan, even if they invaded us, simply because they are no longer invading us now. In fact, we are the ones physically migrating into their territories.

If there is any future in building confidence between the Philippines and China, then it must seriously consider affecting cultural transformations in the manner each country is imaged in the ordinary and everyday lives of people in the other country.

https://www.manilatimes.net/culture-conflict-diplomacy-and-the-west-philippine-sea/550589/