No proxy liberation

Let us be clear from the outset: we vehemently reject Washington’s militarization of the region, while also rejecting any illusion that the Philippine anti-imperialist struggle can be outsourced to Beijing.

Recent analyses on the intensification of US militarism in the Asia-Pacific have become increasingly visible amid Washington’s expanding military basing, missile deployments, proxy arrangements, and political interference across the region. Much of this work is necessary, even indispensable, particularly when it exposes the dangerous logic of US primacy and containment directed against China.

The problem with geopolitical reductionism 

Yet alongside these important anti-imperialist interventions, a troubling tendency has also become increasingly visible. A number of geopolitical commentators — including some whose broader critiques of US imperialism remain insightful and politically important — have begun interpreting local struggles in countries like the Philippines in ways that are remarkably careless, overly generalized, and at times steeped in disinformation.In their eagerness to map local contradictions onto the strategic imperatives of Washington, they flatten complex political terrains into a binary drama of imperialism versus national resistance, often mistaking inter-elite factionalism for anti-imperialist struggle. 

What emerges is a mode of geopolitical analysis that, despite its critique of Western domination, occasionally risks becoming the mirror image of Eurocentrism. Just as Eurocentrism historically rendered the Global South legible only through the categories and interests of metropolitan power, a certain geopolitical reductionism now interprets social formations primarily through the strategic imperatives of state actors and the geopolitical logic of containment. In this framework, class struggle, historical specificity, and the uneven contradictions internal to a society recede into the background. Peoples’ struggles become secondary to elite maneuvering; mass movements are dismissed as mere instruments of foreign influence; and local ruling factions are elevated into “nationalist” forces simply because they temporarily come into contradiction with Washington.

In the Philippine case, this tendency can produce extraordinary distortions: bolstering elite factions that are no less committed than Washington’s preferred allies to preserving a semi-colonial, semi-feudal social order — including its persistent non-industrial character order marked by labor export, agrarian crisis, militarization, and repression. That a ruling faction may tactically engage Beijing or occasionally create the appearance of distance from Washington does not automatically transform it into an anti-imperialist force.

This is not a wholesale dismissal of geopolitical analysis, nor of the important work done by anti-imperialist commentators exposing US hegemony and militarism. Far from it. But any analysis bereft of serious engagement with class struggle, people’s movements, and the contradictions internal to a social formation risks alienating — or worse, dismissing outright — the very anti-imperialist forces on the ground whose struggles could most meaningfully deepen and concretize geopolitical critique.

In their recent X posts, Brian Berletic and Angelo Giuliano* provide strong analyses on US imperialism’s militarization of Asia, containment of China, and the dangerous transformation of countries like the Philippines into forward operating platforms for Washington’s strategic rivalry. Hegseth, PIPIR, missile deployments, EDCA expansion, and NED-linked influence networks deserve serious scrutiny.

But their framing mistakes an inter-elite conflict for a struggle between nationalism and subservience. The Marcos-Duterte split is only the latest expression of the rot of Philippine politics shaped by US imperialism, bureaucrat capitalism, and feudalism. Sara Duterte is no nationalist, just as Marcos Jr. is no patriot but the principal political agent of US imperialism in the Philippines.

The ICC, state violence, and limits of “external plot” frameworks

Rodrigo Duterte did not pursue genuine independence. Despite rhetorical friction with Washington and tactical hedging  with Beijing, his regime did not break from the structural parameters of Philippine subordination. It deepened militarization, purchased large volumes of US weaponry even at the height of the pandemic, scuttled peace negotiations, expanded US-style counterinsurgency through NTF-ELCAC, and presided over widespread killings, repression, and grave violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.

His relations with China and Chinese capital were largely transactional, driven less by any strategic vision of national sovereignty than by political expediency and personal or dynastic gain. Duterte — and now Sara Duterte — have shown little interest in seriously confronting the question of the Philippines’ independent place in an emerging multipolar order.

Like other ruling dynasties in the country, they remain invested in preserving a semi-colonial and non-industrial economic order: one dependent on the export of cheap labor, foreign capital, import dependency, and the securitization of deep social crises — especially the agrarian question — through militarization, extrajudicial killings, and the criminalization of dissent. This is not national independence but the continued management of underdevelopment under conditions shaped by imperialism.

The ICC case is not a “US plot” but emerged from years of grassroots demands for justice over thousands killed in the drug war. Nor is every political crisis a constitutional coup; much of the recent chaos stems from factional struggles within the ruling bloc itself.

Misreadings of Philippine protest politics 

Yes, NED-linked liberal formations and pro-US civil society networks in the Philippines are real and widely recognized. These are anchored in explicitly anti-communist social-democratic formations such as Akbayan and Tindig Pilipinas, and extend, in a more selective and situational manner, into segments of the broader Liberal Party establishment. Their  political orientation has at key moments rendered them among the most reliable civilian conduits for US imperial influence. 

No serious critical thinker in the Philippines mistakes Maria Ressa or formations like Tindig for radical or anti-systemic forces. Yet it is inaccurate to portray the latter as the principal leader of anti-corruption mobilizations. Tindig’s sectarianism and persistent hostility toward broader anti-imperialist formations—most evident in its leading role within the Trillion Peso March alliance—often undermined the possibility of a united front. By contrast, significantly larger mobilizations were carried by broader anti-corruption formations such as Kilos Bayan Kontra Kurakot (KBKK) and allied formations, including the national democratic left as part of this wider people’s movement against systemic corruption.

Against outsourced anti-imperialism 

Most importantly: US imperialism remains the principal terrorist force in the world today and the primary contradiction confronting the Philippines. For Philippine revolutionaries, this contradiction is antagonistic and can only be resolved through protracted people’s war for national liberation toward socialism. Contradictions with China, including maritime disputes, are secondary, arising largely within the context of US containment, and are therefore non-antagonistic and should be resolvable through diplomacy.

It is absolutely necessary to oppose Washington’s militarization of the region and reject efforts to transform the Philippines into a platform for imperial confrontation. But neither do we outsource our anti-imperialist struggle — which is inseparable from the struggle for national liberation toward socialism — to Beijing. Our struggle must remain independent: rooted in the people’s democratic aspirations, strengthened through organized mass struggle, and enriched by anti-fascist and anti-imperialist solidarity movements across the world.

*The two commentators under discussion come from distinct yet overlapping geopolitical vantage points. Angelo Giuliano describes himself on X as a geopolitical and financial analyst who has lived in China since 1995, while Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer known for his analyses of US militarism and geopolitical strategy in Asia.

The post No proxy liberation appeared first on Bulatlat.