Why public opinion about hedging?

The competition between the US and China for influence in the Asia-Pacific has presented opportunities and challenges to ASEAN countries. Both superpowers have been eager to offer the countries improved economic relations or security assurances; yet in return, the nations have been pressured to take a side in the great power struggle. Conventional wisdom, primarily based on realist theories, suggests that ASEAN countries have little choice but to either align with the US to balance the “China threat,” or join the bandwagon of a rising China and shun the US (Broomfield Reference Broomfield2003; Chan Reference Chan2012; Murphy Reference Murphy2017; Pan Reference Pan2004; Roy Reference Roy1996). In recent years, it has further been assumed that the more intense the US–China competition, the narrower the possibility for the countries to remain unaligned (East–West Center 2021; Korolev Reference Korolev2019; Seow Reference Seow2018).

So far, these predictions have not been borne out. Studies examining the foreign policy choices of ASEAN countries have demonstrated that most of these countries have adopted a third strategy: hedging, characterized by increased trade relations with China and robust security ties with the United States (Busbarat Reference Busbarat2017; Heydarian Reference Heydarian2017; Kuik Reference Kuik2016; Laksmana Reference Laksmana and Denoon2017; Murphy Reference Murphy2017; Noor and Qistina Reference Noor and Qistina2017; Syailendra Reference Syailendra2017; Thayer Reference Thayer2017; Železný Reference Železný2022). Moreover, there is little evidence that the deepening US–China competition will eliminate the space for the hedging strategy. During the US–ASEAN Special Summit held in May 2022, the ASEAN leaders welcomed Washington's decision to upgrade relations with the region; at the same time, the leaders remained cautious about the move being seen as targeting China (The Straits Times, 2022). In an interview, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen made it clear: “We don't have to choose between the US and China. There is no need to do so. Whether or not you force me to take one, I will refuse” (Sochan Reference Sochan2022). The sentiment was echoed in a speech by Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, who stressed that “between independence and dependence, our choice is always independence” (CSIS 2022).

Despite the compelling logic of the hedging strategy, domestic politics can throw a wrench into its sustainability. The Philippines’ policy toward China, for instance, has shifted back and forth as a result of domestic politics before Duterte's presidency (Chang Reference Chang2021; Heydarian Reference Heydarian2017). Coinciding with China's rise, several recent developments have made public opinion a major political force in foreign policy making in Southeast Asia. First, the post-Cold War era has seen the reemergence of nationalism in Asia as a result of an opening up of ideological space, lingering territorial disputes, and shifts in the regional power structure (Gries Reference Gries2004; Lee Reference Lee2007; Vu Reference Vu2013). Compared with the earlier nationalist movements in the mid-twentieth century aimed at independence from colonial rule, the new nationalism has sought to assert national identity, exercise independent foreign policy, and defend national territories (Bui Reference Bui2017; Cotillon Reference Cotillon2017; Lee Reference Lee2007; Machida Reference Machida2017; Noor and Qistina Reference Noor and Qistina2017; Tønnesson Reference Tønnesson2016; Vu Reference Vu2013). Second, a wave of political liberalization and democratization in Asia during the period has expanded mass participation in politics (Laksmana Reference Laksmana and Denoon2017; Lee Reference Lee2007; Murphy Reference Murphy2017; Syailendra Reference Syailendra2017; Vu Reference Vu2013). Finally, the advancement of communication technologies in the last two decades has made it easier for the public to access information about foreign affairs and more difficult for governments to insulate foreign policies from public scrutiny (Montiel and Dela Paz Reference Montiel and Dela Paz2020; Montiel et al. Reference Montiel, Salvador, See and De Leon2014; Murphy Reference Murphy2017; Noor and Qistina Reference Noor and Qistina2017). Combined, these developments have forced the region's governments “to debate, justify, and seek public support for agreements with foreign countries that were previously made behind closed doors” (Murphy Reference Murphy2017, 179).

The Philippines offers perhaps the most interesting case and a hard case in Southeast Asia for studying public attitudes toward hedging. At the core of the hedging strategy is preserving foreign policy autonomy while not forgoing the benefits presented by either superpower. However, this goal is most complicated for the Philippines. The country has internationally well-publicized SCS territorial disputes with China, a highly mobilized public that pays close attention to the matter, an overwhelmingly favorable ruling on the disputes by an international arbitration body, and a long-time military alliance with the US. On the other hand, China did not participate in the arbitral proceedings and rejected the ruling outright. These conditions would have been ripe for nationalistic public backlash against China and a public preference for a closer policy alignment with the US to counter perceived security threats posed by China. As a shrewd politician, Duterte must have been aware of the potential costs of appearing conciliatory regarding the disputes; yet he persisted with a hedging strategy without suffering a loss in popularity. This suggests there are nuances to the relationship between nationalism and the public's attitudes toward foreign policy in the Philippines. Moreover, if the public still supports the hedging strategy under these conditions, it is reasonable to expect that a similar logic could also apply to other countries in the region.

Nationalism and foreign policy independence

Nationalism is a powerful force in international politics. In Asia, rising nationalism has been credited as a major contributing factor in the increasingly assertive foreign policy postures on territorial disputes from China, South Korea, and Vietnam (Cotillon Reference Cotillon2017; Wiegand Reference Wiegand2015). Indeed, abundant scholarly research has found that territorial disputes are particularly prone to generating nationalistic reactions from the public (Roy Reference Roy1997; Shelef Reference Shelef2016; Tir Reference Tir2010; Vasquez Reference Vasquez1993, Reference Vasquez2009; Wiegand Reference Wiegand2015). It is thus not surprising that the SCS territorial disputes, the main source of tension between China and the Philippines, have a large influence on Philippine citizens’ attitudes toward China. For instance, in the June 2019 public opinion survey by the Social Weather Stations, a research institution in the Philippines, 74 percent of the respondents said that it was very important “getting back control of the islands currently occupied by China in the West Philippine Sea” (Social Weather Stations 2019). Nationalistic demonstrations against China have also broken out in the Philippines since 2012, when the issue became salient during the Aquino administration. In fact, analysts suggest that the tension has galvanized Philippine nationalism and strengthened national unity, and this itself was a worthy policy goal for the government (Dor Reference Dor2015; Esmaquel II Reference Esmaquel2012). Consistent with the approach of highlighting the territorial disputes, President Aquino adopted a foreign policy of expanding the security relationship between Manila and Washington to balance against China.

However, Aquino's strategy of choosing a side may be an exception rather than a rule in the Philippines and in Southeast Asia more broadly. Both his predecessor, President Arroyo, and President Duterte adopted more accommodating and cooperative policies toward China (Chang Reference Chang2021; Ciorciari Reference Ciorciari2010; Heydarian Reference Heydarian2017; Kuik Reference Kuik2016). One could argue that the SCS territorial disputes were not yet salient under President Arroyo, but they had certainly become a core foreign policy challenge for Duterte. So why haven't nationalist sentiments pushed the Philippines’ foreign policy toward consistent alignment with the US?

While it is easy to link nationalism with negative feelings toward others, nationalism first and foremost is about loyalty toward one's own nation. Nationalism can generate negative feelings in an individual toward others when those “others” are perceived to be harming the identity and interest of the nation that the individual belongs to. But such hostilities directed at outgroups, usually triggered by crises such as territorial disputes and particularly susceptible to elite and media constructed narratives (Montiel and Dela Paz Reference Montiel and Dela Paz2020; Montiel et al. Reference Montiel, Salvador, See and De Leon2014), are not the only display of nationalism. Where foreign affairs are concerned, a more enduring manifestation of nationalism, perhaps shaped by the historical experiences of a people, is a strong preference for autonomous foreign policy making (Lee Reference Lee2007), with the natural idea that “the pursuit of national interest is best served through an independent policy” (Laksmana Reference Laksmana and Denoon2017, 117). This logic very much underlies the hedging strategy. The desire for independent foreign policy making is particularly strong for Southeast Asian countries, who experienced centuries of colonization by Western powers, during which they lost their autonomy and suffered exploitation as a result (Ciorciari Reference Ciorciari2010; Heydarian Reference Heydarian2017; Laksmana Reference Laksmana and Denoon2017; Noor and Qistina Reference Noor and Qistina2017). Even though these countries have achieved national independence for a long time, the goal of foreign policy independence remains relevant today, and they are vigilant against serving the grand strategy of a superpower rather than their own respective national interests (Laksmana Reference Laksmana and Denoon2017). Foreign policy independence is even written into the constitution of the Philippines. Put differently, anti-colonial nationalism and the resulting determination to maintain foreign policy independence mean there is domestic resistance against being too closely aligned with any outside power in Southeast Asian countries.

In the case of the Philippines, there is a long history of anti-imperial and anti-American nationalist sentiments due to a half-century of US colonial rule (San Juan Reference San Juan2007; Webb and Curato Reference Webb and Curato2019). According to historian Reynaldo C. Ileto, Filipino nationalism is “constructed upon a history of opposition to a colonial and alien ‘other’” (Ileto Reference Ileto1993, 78). Even at the height of the Philippines–US alliance relationship during the Cold War, President Ferdinando Marcos rhetorically distanced himself from Washington to blunt the criticisms from domestic nationalists of his reliance on American support to stay in power (Ciorciari Reference Ciorciari2010, 165). Immediately after the Cold War, the Philippines closed US bases on its territories as the country “witnessed a rise of pacifism and nationalism” (Heydarian Reference Heydarian2017, 224). Thus, anti-American sentiments may still exist in Philippine society. In fact, analysts suggest that such sentiments may explain Duterte's foreign policy realignment from his predecessor and his bitterness toward the US government when it criticized his domestic policies (Suorsa and Thompson Reference Suorsa and Thompson2017; Teehankee Reference Teehankee2016).

However, it is not obvious that the anti-American sentiments based on historical grievances in Duterte's generation (Teehankee Reference Teehankee2016, 70), and perhaps in some ideological communities, are large enough forces to lay a foundation for the hedging strategy. In a Pew Research Center global attitudes survey published in January 2020, the Philippines showed the most positive view of the US, at 80 percent among 33 countries surveyed. By contrast, 42 percent of Philippine respondents expressed favorable views of China in a similar Pew survey around the same time (Silver, Devlin, and Huang Reference Silver, Devlin and Huang2019; Wike et al. Reference Wike, Poushter, Fetterolf and Schumacher2020). Moreover, in the State of Southeast Asia 2020 survey of specialists from five professional categories by the ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute, a Singaporean think tank, 83 percent of the respondents from the Philippines chose the US rather than China when asked: “If ASEAN were forced to align itself with one of the two strategic rivals, which should it choose?” (Iwamoto Reference Iwamoto2020). These survey results show that there is significant goodwill toward the US in both the Philippine public and foreign policy elites.

More likely, anti-colonial nationalism and a strong preference for foreign policy independence have continued to play an important role in the persistence of hedging strategy. Closely associated with a desire to have autonomous foreign policy making is skepticism of US commitment to Philippine interest, which has accompanied the alliance relationship since the Cold War era (Ciorciari Reference Ciorciari2010, 166; Heydarian Reference Heydarian2017). In the June 2019 survey by the Social Weather Stations, while 81 percent of the respondents answered that they had much trust in the US, when asked whether they believed that “most of what the American government want to happen in the Philippines is good for the Filipinos,” the responses were more split—55 percent answered “somewhat agree” or “strongly agree,” 17 percent answered “somewhat disagree” or “strongly disagree,” and another 27 percent were “undecided” (Social Weather Stations 2019). These findings are consistent with an earlier survey by Pulse Asia Research, conducted in December 2016, in which 17 percent disagreed and 33 percent were undecided when asked whether “security/defense relations with the US have been beneficial to the Philippines” (Pulse Asia Research 2017).

That nationalists view both China and the US with skepticism, for different reasons, and that such sentiments may interact with the Philippines’ economic and security interests, suggest the relationships between nationalism and support for Duterte's hedging strategy may be nuanced. We now turn to our empirical analysis of an original public opinion survey conducted in the Philippines to explore these trends in public attitudes toward China and Philippines–China relations.

Research design

We administered the survey in the Philippines through Qualtrics between October and November 2020.Footnote ¹ Respondents were recruited from an online panel of Filipino adults using a quota sampling strategy to match census data on age, gender, and geographical location. Because of the difficulty in reaching respondents in remote areas, we oversampled those living in urban areas, especially in the capital area (see Appendix A1 for more details). A total of 1,206 respondents completed the survey.

We replicated four questions regarding China and Philippines–China relations used in the Spring 2017 Philippines survey in the PGAP (Poushter and Bishop Reference Poushter and Bishop2017). We did so to compare the attitudes of the Philippine public in the early stages of Duterte's presidency with those more than three years later, as the comparison can reveal changes in attitudes due to the effects of Duterte's handling of relations with China. With the exception of a question on Duterte's China policy, which was only asked in 2017, the other three questions were also asked once during the term of President Aquino III, making it possible to track changes across two administrations. The questions are as follows:

1. 1. Do you think territorial disputes between the Philippines and China are a very big problem, a big problem, a small problem, or not a problem for the Philippines?

2. 2. Do you think that China's power and influence is a major threat, a minor threat, or not a threat to the Philippines?

3. 3. Thinking about our relations with China, in your view, which is more important—being tough with China on territorial disputes between China and our country or having a strong economic relationship with China?

4. 4. Do you approve or disapprove of the way President Rodrigo Duterte is handling relations with China?

The first two questions gauged concerns about territorial disputes and Philippine security in the shadow of China's power and influence, while the third question prompted the respondents to consider the trade-off between the two components of Duterte's China policy. The last question addressed the net effect of those two components.

In order to investigate the relationship between nationalism and respondents’ views on the above questions, we constructed a measure of nationalism by asking respondents to what extent they agreed with each of the following statements, using a five-point Likert scale (strongly agree, somewhat agree, neither agree nor disagree, somewhat disagree, strongly disagree):

1. 1. I am very proud to be Filipino.

2. 2. I would rather be a citizen of the Philippines than a citizen of any other country.

3. 3. The Philippines is the greatest country in the world.

4. 4. I am proud of Philippines’ history and culture.

5. 5. The Philippines should first take care of its self-interests, even if this means having conflict with other countries.

These statements are commonly used to measure nationalism in the International Social Survey Program (ISSP)Footnote ² and the World Values Survey (WVS).Footnote ³ The sentences tap an individual's general attachment to the nation as well as “domain-specific national pride” regarding the country's political and cultural setting (Smith and Kim Reference Smith and Kim2006, 128). Scholars have used different combinations of these questions to construct indices of nationalism, patriotism, or national sentiment (e.g., Davidov Reference Davidov2009; De Figueiredo et al. Reference De Figueiredo, P and Elkins2003; Fang and Li Reference Fang and Li2020; Huddy and Khatib Reference Huddy and Khatib2007). We adopt a similar approach and measure nationalism by combining respondent evaluations of the above statements. Specifically, since responses to each of the five items are measured on a five-point Likert scale coded from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), we take the simple average to create an overall index of nationalism, ranging from 1 to 5. The average of the nationalism measure in the sample is 4.26, suggesting the overall level of nationalism is quite high.

In the remainder of the survey, we asked a battery of standard socioeconomic questions, including age, gender, education, place of residence, income, employment, ethnicity, and party affiliation. Appendix A2 provides the summary statistics of these measures.

Findings

We begin by looking at the overall patterns of the responses to the four questions, presented in Figure 1. For comparison, we include the results for the same questions from previous rounds of the PGAP. We first present the results on territorial disputes and security concerns over China's power and influence, followed by the results on economic relations with China and Duterte's China policy. Finally, we present the results from several regression analyses that show how individual characteristics, particularly nationalism, contributed to respondents’ choices.

Figure 1. Attitudes toward China and Philippines–China Relations over Time

Data From: Authors’ survey and Pew Global Attitudes Survey (various years).

Nationalism and attitudes toward China and bilateral relations

To understand how individual-level characteristics influenced respondents’ views, especially the role of nationalism in attitudes toward China and support for Duterte's hedging strategy, we estimated four logistic regression models corresponding to each of the four questions in the survey. In constructing the dependent variables, we transformed ordinal responses to binary measures for the first two questions. Specifically, we coded responses of “very big problem” and “big problem” to the first question and “major threat” to the second question as 1 and the rest as 0. For the third question, we coded “having a strong economic relationship” as 1 and “being tough with China on territorial disputes” as 0. For the final question, we coded “approval” of Duterte's China policy as 1 and “disapproval” as 0.

The main independent variable for each model is nationalism. Additionally, we included as control variables the following socioeconomic characteristics: age (12-point scale), gender (1 for male and 0 for female), level of education (9-point scale), income (10-point scale), whether the respondent lives in an urban area, is Tagalog (the largest ethnolinguistic group in the Philippines), has a full-time job, and supports PDP–Laban, the ruling party (see the Appendix for summary statistics). In all of the models, we used robust standard errors clustered by respondent region. The results are presented in Table 1.

Table 1. Nationalism and Attitudes toward China and Bilateral Relations

Note: Robust standard errors clustered by region in parentheses. ** p < 0.01, * p < 0.05

Focusing on the measure of nationalism first, we can see that the coefficient estimates in models 2, 3, and 4 are statistically significant. More nationalistic respondents were less likely to view China as a major threat, more likely to believe economic relations with China are important for the Philippines, and more likely to approve of President Duterte's China policy. The exception is model 1, which used the response on whether or not the territorial disputes are a big problem as the dependent variable; here, the coefficient estimate of nationalism does not cross the conventional threshold of statistical significance. In other words, the more nationalistic individuals did not view the territorial disputes differently than those who were less so. One possible reason is that very few respondents in the sample considered the territorial dispute to be “a small problem” or “not a problem at all,” making it difficult to distinguish the effects of nationalism on this question.

To better understand the magnitudes of the effects of nationalism, Figure 2 plots the changes in public attitudes as a function of nationalism in each model. The predicted probabilities with 95 percent confidence intervals are calculated using estimates from Table 1, with the rest of the control variables in the model held at their mean. We first examine those who are the least nationalistic—that is, with a score of 1 on the nationalism measure. An “average” Filipino (i.e., one with average socioeconomic characteristics in the sample) with the lowest level of nationalism will almost certainly see the territorial disputes as a big problem, and there is a nine-in-ten chance that the respondent will consider China's power and influence to be a major threat. Consistent with this view, there is a little over two-in-ten chance that the respondent will view a strong economic relationship with China as more important than being tough on territorial disputes. Consequently, the individual is highly likely (90 percent) to disapprove of Duterte's China policy.

Figure 2. Effects of Nationalism on Attitudes toward China and Bilateral Relations

Note: The predicted probabilities with 95% confidence intervals are calculated using estimates from Table 1 with the rest of the control variables in the model held at their mean.

In contrast, an average Filipino who is highly nationalistic—that is, in strong agreement with all five of the statements that measure nationalism—expressed nearly the same level of concern about the territorial disputes as those who are the least nationalistic. At the same time, this type of respondent had a more positive perspective on the other three questions than the least nationalistic counterpart. In particular, there is now a seven-in-ten chance that this individual will see China as a major threat and a four-in-ten chance they will support having a stronger economic relationship with China. The shift in attitude is even more dramatic with respect to Duterte's handling of the Philippines’ relationship with China. Compared to the least nationalistic counterpart, they are more likely to approve (60 percent) than disapprove (40 percent) of Duterte's China policy.

Taken together, these results support our conjecture that the relationship between nationalism and attitudes toward the challenges and opportunities presented by China's growing power is complex in the Philippines. Lurking in the background of our survey questions is an obvious policy option of taking a more confrontational approach to China by relying on American support, as President Aquino chose to do during his presidency. While this policy may satisfy nationalist sentiments toward the SCS territorial disputes, it would also mean taking a side in the great-power competition, which nationalists might also wish to avoid for fear of losing foreign policy autonomy. It is likely that these two conflicting desires were both at play in producing these results.

Moreover, that China presents trade-offs between security concerns and economic opportunities might have further conditioned the effect of nationalism on the respondents’ attitudes. According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, China was the Philippines’ top trading partner between 2016 and 2019, with bilateral trade growing at an average of 17 percent annually (World Bank 2020). China has also ranked as either the top or the second-largest source of foreign investments for the Philippines since 2018 (Philippines Board of Investment 2020). Finally, as a popular incumbent president, Duterte might have been able to change domestic discourse and bring his supporters closer to his ideological and policy positions (Montiel et al. Reference Montiel, Boller, Uyheng and Espina2019). Notably, both Duterte and Aquino pushed for nationalistic narratives—no doubt with the media playing a crucial role (Montiel and Dela Paz Reference Montiel and Dela Paz2020; Montiel et al. Reference Montiel, Salvador, See and De Leon2014)—but aiming at different targets: Aquino's targeted China over the territorial disputes, while Duterte's targeted the US over imperialism in the history of the Philippines (Dor Reference Dor2015; Kinzer Reference Kinzer2016; Moss Reference Moss2016).

We now turn to the other control variables in the models and highlight three findings. First, support for the ruling party (PDP–Laban) is consistently significant across all four models, and its substantive effects are in the same direction as nationalism. This is unsurprising, as support for Duterte's party should be correlated with higher support for his foreign policy and, consequently, with more favorable attitudes on China. Second, education is a significant predictor in three of the four models, and its effect is the opposite of nationalism. More highly educated respondents tended to have more unfavorable views on China and were less approving of Duterte's China policy. This supports the notion that Duterte's nationalist discourse resonates more with populist than elitist groups of the population. Finally, older respondents were more likely to approve of the way Duterte handles the Philippines’ relationship with China but at the same time also supported getting tough on China with respect to the territorial disputes.