MONDAY was a day of failed expectations.
For all of the tightness of my schedule that morning, I managed to eke out time to come to the popular Pandesal Forum for one reason: Wilson Lee Flores, entrepreneur of the Kamuning Bakery Café that hosts the event, had stressed in his invitation that the outcome of the summit between United States President Donald Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping would be up for discussion. I had already made a draft of my own observation of the China event for my Manila Times column, and I had expected to enrich it further with the discussions at the Pandesal Forum.
Alas, my dialysis procedure that morning necessarily prevented me from coming to the Kamuning Bakery Café affair early. By the time I got to the event, I had completely missed the characteristic excited exchanges between media people and guests. Already transpiring was the guests striking up the traditional pose in a photo op, each holding for the photographers to display to all and sundry what else but a bagful of the iconic Kamuning Bakery Café Pandesal.
As a consequence, this unexpurgated personal view of the Trump-Xi confrontation stays.
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After the China summit, one reporter was all it took to get a good glimpse of what transpired in the bilateral talks between Trump and Xi.
The first question the reporter asked: “What were discussed in your talks? Did you talk about Taiwan?”
Absentmindedly, Trump grumbled, indicating the venue: “Incredible.”
Next question, “Did you talk about Taiwan?”
Appearing dumbfounded, Trump did not answer.
And the third question was a final repeat of “Did you talk about Taiwan?”
Trump quipped unmindfully, “China is beautiful.”
Such nonsensical responses, one would say.
But the reporter actually scored a bull’s-eye. He hit what Trump had mainly wanted to achieve in his visit but had not: a softening of China’s hard-line insistence on the One-China policy.
No need to hear that coming out of the horse’s mouth, so to speak. China’s position on Taiwan has not altered from the very beginning, and will stay that way to the very end.
So, on the world stage, the status quo stays: the continuing Iranian war, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz to ships of the US and its allies, and the binge of missiles and drones attacks on Israel and US military installations across the Gulf region.
The Iranian war drags on — and all its disastrous consequences on the world economy.
In the Asia-Pacific, the potential of a US-China conflict simmers, and particularly in relation to the Philippines, it tends to deepen with the Marcos administration’s open heavy leaning toward the US. But the continuing dialogue between Chinese Ambassador Jing Quan and Foreign Affairs Secretary Ma. Theresa Lazaro has been insurance enough that the persistent US instigation of Philippine animosity toward China won’t come about.
In fact, in the current oil crisis brought about by the Iranian war, China has signaled willingness to come to the Philippines’ succor.
A more likely flash point appears to be the unsettled historical animosity between China and Japan. The Nanking massacre (December 1937–March 1938), in which thousands of Chinese noncombatants were killed by Japanese occupation forces, has not been atoned for to this very day. And ill feelings among Chinese in this regard have been effectively revived with the uncalled-for declaration by Japanese Premier Sanae Takaichi that if Taiwan is attacked, Japan will have to be involved militarily.
The remarks created a groundswell of angry reactions from Chinese officials, from the Chinese foreign minister, who called the remarks interference in China’s internal affairs, to the Chinese consul in Osaka, Japan, who proposed to “chop off their heads,” referring to Takaichi.
Takaichi refused to apologize for her remarks, going on in a splurge of anti-Chinese tirades, all the way to proposing revising Japan’s pacifist constitution so as to accommodate her militaristic stand.
Japan has since joined the US in war exercises in the Philippines.
Recently, it was rather a shock for this column to read about Tomahawk missiles being test-launched in the Philippines. This is the type of weapon that Russian President Vladimir Putin prohibited the US from providing Ukraine.
That’s how destructive it is.
And now comes this information from a colleague journalist that the Tomahawk missiles fired from Nueva Ecija was not American but Japanese.
So, in a short time of militarization, Japan is now armed with the weapon even Russia fears.
And citing Russia in this regard, it has never signed a peace treaty with Japan for ending World War II. This is because in the final days of the war, Russia seized Japan’s Northern Territories off the coast of Hokkaido and has occupied the islands which it calls the Kuriles.
Technically, Japan and Russia continue to be at war to this day.
Now, is there a graver flash point than this?
But then again, there, too, remain the unhealed wounds of the Nanking massacre.
Ah, too many aches!
Has America still got the power to add the final pain?
By the reckoning of a political analyst, the Iranian war is now costing America $1 billion per day. How much longer can it sustain such enormous cost?
The China visit must be one truly spectacular relief for Trump.
The military reception with its precision-punctuated march and drill, the steady stillness of a Chinese soldier standing his guard, unmoved whatsoever by Air Force One skimming his behind as it maneuvered to a stop.
And then the thunderous welcoming chants of hundreds of children waving Chinese and American flags on his arrival at Tiananmen Square.
Repeat that spectacle at Trump’s departure after the summit with Xi, and there is no other way for Trump but to ache finally — wishing everything accorded to him was in America.
Sad but no, it is in China.
Trump fought off a surge of sorry emotions with a lame shake of his head, then with curtly spoken, voiceless “Thank you” to the send-off from the Chinese military and crowd, and stepped into Air Force One for the trip back to America’s worries.
But clearly the wisdom of President Xi’s challenge from the very opening of his summit with Trump must resonate over the angry purring of what is believed to be the mightiest aircraft in the world:
“Currently, a transformation not seen in a century is accelerating across the globe. The international situation is fluid and turbulent, and the world has come to a new crossroad.
“Can China and the United States overcome the Thucydides Trap and create a new paradigm of major countries relations?”
(The Thucydides Trap is a logical consequence of the emergence of a new growing power necessarily pit in contention against a decaying one, making military confrontation unavoidable. While being the one favored by the Thucydides Trap, Xi strongly warns against it).
“Can we meet global challenges together and provide more stability for the world?
“These are the questions that you and I as leaders of major countries need to answer.
“China and the United States both stand to gain by cooperation and lose by confrontation.
“We should be partners, not rivals.”