Examining the Philippines’ infrastructure and connectivity cooperation with China and the European Union

Abstract

Like many other countries in the Global South, the Philippines is in dire need of foreign investments and loans to develop its infrastructure. Former President Rodrigo Duterte (2016–2022) sought close cooperation with China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to complement his ambitious Build! Build! Build! program. His successor Ferdinand Marcos Jr. continued many BRI projects, but canceled others, due to lack of funding from China and increased tensions in the South China Sea. Moreover, he deepened cooperation with the European Union (EU) in security and infrastructure, thereby benefiting from the EU’s Global Gateway Initiative (GGI). The findings of this study, which is theoretically located at the intersection of foreign, economic, and domestic politics, build strongly on a representative survey conducted in the Philippines in 2022. One of the major findings is the occurrence of perceptions of the Philippine citizens and elites of China and the EU that are strongly in line with each other. Another finding is the extent of the Filipinos’ ability to differentiate between “good”, “bad”, and “beautiful” effects of BRI projects despite their negative attitude towards China. Conversely, even though the EU is seen in a very positive light, the study concludes that the GGI can only then become an additional infrastructure offer, if the GGI projects bring tangible benefits to the Filipinos. Both the BRI and the GGI illustrate that offering infrastructure collaboration is strongly based on geopolitical and geo-economic reasoning, but that the recipient can utilize this fact to further its economic interests.