Despite warning signs, both Manila and Beijing were determined to celebrate Xi’s visit.
The suspension of work in the Philippines’ capital and the wreath laying ceremony honoring Filipino national hero Jose Rizal captured the warm welcome of President Rodrigo Duterte to his new-found big brother, Chinese President Xi Jinping. Xi is paying a two-day state visit to the Southeast Asian nation, his first since assuming office in 2013.
There were doubts about the Chinese leader’s stopover in sunny Manila after his weekend attendance at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Papua New Guinea. The annual APEC meeting concluded without an agreed joint communiqué for the first time in its 25-year existence, which reports blamed on tensions between the United States and China. Just before APEC, the media also caught mercurial Filipino leader Duterte skipping the regional summit dinner and missing multiple meetings in favor of naps at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summit in Singapore.
But despite the less-than-auspicious events of the previous week, in Manila Duterte and Xi took advantage of their expanded bilateral meeting to reaffirm the deepening of China-Philippines relations. Xi’s state visit was profoundly dubbed as the “ rainbow after the rain,” deliberately aimed at cementing the once-broken lines of good neighborliness and friendship. The bonhomie carried on despite the untimely release of poll results pointing to anti-Chinese sentiments in the Philippines just before the red carpet was rolled out for Xi (in a double blow, the poll also revealed far higher levels of trust in the United States). Still, the arrival of Xi in Manila marked a new beginning. Beijing had a sour relationship with the archipelagic country under Duterte’s predecessor, Benigno Aquino III, who initiated the international arbitration case against China’s claims in the contested South China Sea.
