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“TRANSFORMATIVE”, “historic”, “eloquent”: such are the compliments which American officials these days shower on Ferdinand Marcos, the Philippines’ president. After a six-year dalliance with China by his predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, Mr Marcos’s re-embrace of America is a great geostrategic gift. Never mind the early doubts about his leadership and his effort to rehabilitate his late father, a Philippine dictator who fled to Hawaii in 1986.
“Bongbong”, as the president is known, has padlocked the “first island chain” around China. From Hokkaido in Japan to Palawan in the Philippines, the line of American friends and allies may prove decisive in any future war.
For now the contest is in the grey zone, between peace and war. China’s coastguard regularly harasses Filipino vessels with water cannon near disputed shoals in the South China Sea. But at the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual defence talkfest in Singapore that ended on June 2nd, China got the political blasting.
Mr Marcos denounced China’s “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive actions”. Lloyd Austin, America’s defence secretary, concurred, calling China’s behaviour “dangerous, pure...