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00:00.0
This is the Richard Hedarn Podcast, otherwise known as Meta Podcast.
00:04.5
Gladly, of course, we can proudly say, one of the leading political podcasts in the region and beyond.
00:10.4
And today, since we want to keep our international profile up, we have a very good friend of mine, Raymond.
00:16.9
Raymond Powell, thank you very much for joining us.
00:20.4
Thanks, Richard. It's great to be here.
00:21.7
And you're joining us from California, right?
00:24.8
So just to remind everyone that our good friend here is making such a big sacrifice,
00:29.0
considering it's like, what, 16 hours time difference, even worse than Washington, D.C.
00:33.3
So thank you so much for waking up at 6 a.m. or so.
00:36.6
I know our friends would love us to even do this earlier, but I think this is the most reasonable we can do under the current circumstances.
00:44.5
Now, speaking of reasonable circumstances, unfortunately, that's not what we have in the South China Sea or West Philippines as we speak.
00:51.5
But before we go into the nitty-gritties and the latest developments in the area,
00:56.4
Raymond, for the purpose of some of our audience who may want to know,
00:59.0
know more about you, and hopefully we can have you more regular over time,
01:02.3
can you tell us a little bit about yourself first, your connection to the Philippines,
01:06.8
so that people don't realize you're just not a random, I don't know, white dude making comments and stuff.
01:10.8
You're not, right?
01:12.0
And just as important also, what your center, the Gordian Knot Center, does and what's in contribution.
01:19.1
So thank you again for joining us.
01:22.1
Yeah, so I first came to the Philippines in 1988.
01:29.0
I was a young military guy.
01:30.7
I was stationed at Clark Air Base, which is in Pampanga,
01:35.4
which is also very close to a mountain that people may be familiar with, Mount Pinatubo.
01:42.4
And so I was there in 1991 when the volcano exploded.
01:47.5
And at that time, together with my young new bride, Filipina, from Davao City,
01:55.1
was evacuated and ended up...
01:59.0
on a ship, because that was the only way you could get people out right after the volcano.
02:03.7
So I spent three years in the Philippines at that time.
02:06.4
And of course, I am now married to the Philippines for over 33 years.
02:11.4
Before I go to your center, wait.
02:13.2
So you were in Pampanga, but you married from Davao?
02:17.0
I'm from the north.
02:17.8
Yeah, she was working at a little church right off the military base.
02:23.5
So I was a good boy.
02:26.0
I was going to church, and I met her there.
02:29.0
I mean, what better place to meet your lifetime partners.
02:32.1
God bless you guys.
02:33.2
And of course, more than 30 years and going strong.
02:36.0
Now, of course, you spent time a lot in the military throughout the years,
02:40.2
but now you're with a very, I would say, edgy, cutting-edge center now in Stanford University.
02:47.4
Can you tell us a little bit about Gordian Knot?
02:49.3
What was the idea behind it?
02:50.7
Of course, we can check on website, but from you, from someone within,
02:54.6
can you tell us a little bit about your center in Stanford?
02:57.5
So the interesting thing about Gordian Knot,
02:59.0
first of all, as it relates to me, I am actually a volunteer with Gordian Knot.
03:03.6
So I got started with Gordian Knot about a year and a half ago.
03:08.0
They run a program in which students try to innovate for national security answers to thorny questions.
03:18.2
They get questions that are real-world questions for young students to try to solve,
03:23.5
and a lot of them get solved in very innovative ways.
03:26.0
And sometimes new initiatives are launched.
03:29.0
Companies are launched.
03:30.0
And I joined them actually because I know the director, a guy named Joe Felter,
03:35.7
pretty well from previous life when I was a defense attache,
03:42.3
and he was working in the Pentagon as a deputy assistant secretary of defense.
03:46.2
And I got started with them, and I just went to them and said,
03:49.4
look, I'm interested in the South China Sea.
03:51.9
I see what you guys do here with hacking for defense.
03:54.5
It's interesting to me.
03:56.5
I feel like the South China Sea is a place that innovation,
03:59.0
which should happen because, frankly, I don't understand the U.S. strategy,
04:03.0
and it feels like we're losing in slow motion,
04:04.9
and I'm not really sure what we're doing.
04:07.1
So how about if I just start a project?
04:09.9
And they said, okay.
04:11.5
You know, being an innovation center,
04:13.2
they were open to sort of randos coming in from wherever and saying,
04:19.3
I'm interested in this.
04:20.3
And a bunch of people just got interested in the same thing.
04:23.2
So the weird thing about our project, which ended up, of course, being called Sea Light,
04:29.0
is that we're all volunteers.
04:31.8
And I have some interesting people on Facebook and Twitter who follow me and troll me
04:39.9
and accuse me of all kinds of nefarious activities and, you know, involvement with the CIA.
04:47.0
And I recently had one guy who said I had a $500 million propaganda budget.
04:52.3
I actually have a $0 propaganda budget.
04:55.0
I have a $0 anything budget.
04:57.0
I'm living off of my...
04:59.0
my military pension and, you know, a part-time job and my wife's job as a teacher
05:05.5
and doing what I do because I kind of have a passion for the Philippines.
05:11.2
I love the Philippines.
05:12.1
Of course, I've been married to it for a long time.
05:14.1
And I'm interested in this topic.
05:18.3
Thank you for that.
05:19.1
Of course, Joe is someone that many people involved in the Asia-Pacific, Indo-Pacific affairs
05:24.6
have been familiar with, of course, with some of us who have connections also at Stanford.
05:29.0
By Shorenston Center, among others.
05:31.7
Fantastic stuff there.
05:32.7
And, of course, there are also some very senior officials, including James Mattis,
05:37.6
also involved there, right?
05:41.5
Yeah, Jim Mattis, of course, you know, again, he was a defense secretary when I was defense
05:45.5
attache in Australia and have had the chance to interact with him a few times because he
05:52.0
is a regular here.
05:52.8
He now lives up in Washington State because...
05:59.0
Because very late in life, he decided to get married.
06:02.1
He was known as the warrior monk.
06:03.7
Actually, I was about to...
06:04.7
Is he still a monk?
06:06.4
I mean, I was about to ask, right?
06:08.1
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
06:09.1
Oh, he's now happily married.
06:11.9
And when he comes down, he's got a big smile on his face.
06:14.8
So it's always great to see him.
06:17.2
But yeah, we see him from time to time.
06:19.4
It's always good to see people having a new life after especially serving under administration
06:24.8
like that of Trump administration.
06:29.0
can you tell us a little bit first about what exactly are you guys doing under your
06:34.9
So we have an idea about the center.
06:36.6
So center is about, you know, really bring people from different background, policy,
06:41.5
technology, private sector, business, and it's Stanford, of course.
06:45.8
That's really what Stanford is all about.
06:47.8
But particularly your project, what is all about?
06:50.0
I mean, you just set up your website went live just over a year ago or something?
06:54.8
Or time has passed faster than a year ago.
06:57.5
I'm trying to keep in touch.
07:00.4
No, it was just under a year ago, July of last year.
07:03.8
We, uh, it was actually the, um, anniversary of the arbitral tribunal ruling.
07:07.4
So, uh, I was in Manila for the launch of the website.
07:11.1
Um, and we essentially, so the website, there's really a couple of avenues that I usually
07:17.6
put information out on.
07:19.0
One is the website.
07:19.7
The other, of course, is my, my X feed or my Twitter feed.
07:22.8
Um, but it's all about the idea of maritime transparency.
07:27.5
I'm not the first person to do maritime transparency.
07:29.5
In fact, you know, CSIS has a very famous, uh, Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative,
07:34.2
uh, project that they've been doing for, for over a decade.
07:37.5
And we got a lot of inspiration from them and we, we really respect what they do.
07:42.0
Um, I have a little bit, uh, with SeaLight, we have a little bit of a, of a different
07:46.9
place in the, in the transparency ecosystem where they do more sort of, you know, finely
07:52.9
tuned, uh, very highly, uh, uh, you know, highly tuned, uh, you know, highly tuned, uh, highly
07:57.5
tuned, uh, produced, uh, products that they put out.
08:00.4
Really good stuff.
08:04.6
No, I'm not as highbrow as them.
08:06.4
Of course, they have, they have a lot more money than I do.
08:08.9
I mean, I love Greg.
08:11.1
We had this on, on, on this show also.
08:13.5
So it's always stuff, more transparency on this show.
08:16.7
Hey, I, I've got nothing but respect for those guys.
08:18.7
Um, I, I'm more like the, the beat reporter on the corner who says, look at what I'm watching
08:24.9
This is what's happening.
08:25.6
And, you know, and so.
08:27.5
I sometimes make mistakes, you know, because I'm, you know, I'm sort of putting things
08:32.0
out as, as they happen.
08:33.7
I try to correct those as quickly as I can if I do.
08:36.7
Uh, but, uh, so again, I'm, I'm more like the, you know, if, if, if you think about
08:41.7
the, um, the reporters that go out with the, uh, with the, with the, with the resupply
08:46.7
boats, I, I do something similar except for I do it from a lot further away than they
08:52.3
I mean, just about, so you served also in Southeast Asia before, right?
08:55.7
Was it like Vietnam or something?
08:57.5
Just some idea also about, you know, I mean, of course you're married to the Philippines.
09:01.4
But, but in terms of your service, you were based in Vietnam, if I'm not mistaken.
09:07.0
And in fact, almost the very first thing I ever did, uh, as a young military guy was,
09:12.1
um, to go to Vietnamese language training.
09:15.5
Because, you know, back in the late eighties, we were still in the middle of the cold war.
09:19.0
And frankly, we were interested in Vietnam for completely different reasons back then.
09:22.6
There were, uh, Soviet bombers flying out of Cam Ryan Bay.
09:26.0
So frankly, I was involved in intelligence.
09:27.5
Um, but, uh, many, many years later, uh, about, you know, 10 years ago, I, I and my
09:34.5
family were in, uh, Hanoi and I was the U S, uh, air attache.
09:38.0
And I used to tell the, the, uh, the, the Vietnamese officers, you know, look, I used
09:42.0
to, frankly, I used to spy on you guys.
09:44.1
Um, but now I'm here as a military diplomat because we're partners now.
09:48.9
Can you tell us, tell us a little bit about the transformation of your relationship with
09:52.6
Because I think that's also one of the most fascinating things, uh, in our part of the
09:56.7
I mean, I've spent a lot of time in Vietnam.
09:57.5
I've spent a lot of time with our Vietnamese friend, obviously in the context of South
09:59.9
China Sea, our arbitration case.
10:02.1
And I, I remember very well during a meeting we had in North Korea with the very senior
10:06.7
officials, one of our Vietnamese friend openly said, maybe you want to learn from Vietnam
10:10.7
that, you know, life is not about eternal enemies.
10:13.1
It's about national interest, right?
10:15.0
And look at us in Vietnam.
10:15.9
We're still standing with their national autonomy, but we're opening up our economy, providing
10:20.1
for our people and welfare maximization is the, you know, the ultimate goal of, I don't
10:24.5
know, socialist Republic, modern social.
10:26.4
So, uh, can you tell us about how you understand it, uh, as an American when it comes to the
10:30.8
Vietnamese relationship?
10:34.1
Well, of course, you know, we, we only normalized relations with Vietnam in 1995.
10:37.6
So it's, it's, it hasn't been, it's been less than 30 years since we've even had an embassy
10:42.2
I was only the second ever US Air Force attache to, to be stationed in Hanoi.
10:47.5
Uh, so it's still a young relationship.
10:50.1
I have, you know, complicated thoughts on trying to compare the Philippines and Vietnam
10:54.8
as far as how they relate to China.
10:56.4
Of course, there's the, the US alliance that, that shapes it, but actually geography shapes
11:01.4
it in a lot of ways.
11:02.3
You know, Vietnam looks at, at China, you know, China invaded Vietnam in 1979 across
11:08.5
its Northern border.
11:09.9
Um, and so Vietnam is very aware of the China threat, but as far as the maritime space,
11:16.4
you know, I think the Philippines actually has a harder problem because of all of the,
11:22.6
you know, reefs and shoals in the West Philippines.
11:26.4
You see, Vietnam doesn't quite have that problem.
11:29.4
So, you know, the, the Philippines is the only country in Southeast Asia that has a
11:35.3
major Chinese military base in its own exclusive economic zone.
11:39.6
So Mr. Brief, you know, big port, big airfield, um, is sitting in the middle of the Philippines
11:46.7
exclusive economic zone that, and as a result, you know, the Philippines is the only country
11:52.4
that faces an ongoing blockade of a military.
11:56.4
A military outpost, the one at Ayungin Shoal or Second Thomas Shoal, um, and of course
12:01.3
also a, a restriction on a very, very important, uh, fishing ground of, at Scarborough Shoal.
12:07.9
So I, I think that, you know, even though I, I understand Vietnam's, you know, sort
12:14.3
of bamboo diplomacy as they call it, where they sort of bend back and forth, but, you
12:17.9
know, the Philippines has a little bit of a more urgent, acute problem than Vietnam in
12:23.0
the maritime space at this point.
12:24.6
And so I, I don't, I don't.
12:26.4
I don't think you can just sort of directly compare the two approaches because the circumstances
12:31.9
are so different.
12:34.9
I mean, I think the difference is quite clear.
12:35.9
I mean, just the regime types are totally different.
12:37.7
So you cannot expect the Philippine government to have the same predisposition as Vietnam's
12:42.7
communist regime.
12:43.7
Although it's not like they have stable politics nowadays, we can talk about their reshuffling
12:47.1
of president every six months or so, but overall, of course, authoritarian or single party regimes
12:51.7
or socialist democracies, to put it nicely.
12:54.7
They can approach strategic culture.
12:55.9
And strategic decision making very different from us because one of the things I always
12:59.9
hear about the Philippines is how exceptionally chaotic or unstable or swinging our foreign
13:06.1
I mean, as someone who's been writing on this issue over the past decade or so from Arroyo
13:09.8
to Aquino to Duterte and now Marcus Jr., I mean, I can understand why some of our friends
13:14.6
including there on the other side of the Pacific may feel a little bit about Philippines.
13:18.4
Like what's, what's up with you guys?
13:20.7
So I think there's, there's no need to, you know, emphasize.
13:24.6
But in terms of similarity.
13:25.7
Do you, because in terms of size, both GDP size and population size, almost identical,
13:33.6
Both around half a trillion dollars, both almost upper middle income countries, both
13:38.1
almost 100 million people.
13:39.6
So size wise, two very similar countries, right?
13:42.5
You cannot find two more similar countries in terms of geographic challenges.
13:48.0
What do you think about people are saying maybe there's a thing for the Philippines
13:50.9
to learn from Vietnam?
13:51.9
Of course, the Vietnamese have been studying our arbitration case, among others, also because
13:55.7
they're also always looking at the angle of legal warfare against China.
14:00.5
But do you think is there something that the Philippines can learn from Vietnam?
14:03.2
I know it's going to be weird coming from you like an American saying, oh, Philippines,
14:07.3
you should learn from our former enemies.
14:09.4
But I mean, just for a moment, just put your on your hat as a kind of a regional hand,
14:16.6
Well, I mean, so there's no such thing as a perfect analogy, right?
14:20.6
I mean, it's, it's basically a contradiction in terms.
14:23.6
An analogy is just something that is not quite the same.
14:25.6
So, I mean, so there's always things you can learn from other countries.
14:30.3
I think that there are limits to what you can learn.
14:32.9
So I think you begin with the fact that, of course, every country acts in its own national
14:38.5
And so, you know, a lot of the propaganda that comes from China that accuses the Philippines
14:43.9
of being kind of the cat's paw or the pawn of the United States is extremely condescending
14:50.0
and just ignores Philippine agency.
14:55.0
Because there's no country in the world that sort of just does whatever other country
15:00.6
You know, it's every country acts in its own national interest.
15:06.7
I think that there are things to learn.
15:09.2
And of course, the Philippines needs to consider its own interests in every circumstance.
15:14.5
If the U.S. thinks that the Philippines should do X, the Philippines should say, okay, we'll
15:18.0
take that into consideration because we do what we need to do for our national interests.
15:24.0
And that's, and by the way, that's exactly what the U.S. does, you know, because we're
15:28.0
just, we're normal, right?
15:28.9
We're a normal country that does what we do for our own purposes.
15:32.7
And I completely associate with your sentiments about, you know, being in a democracy.
15:42.4
I remember I was leaving Australia in 2020 and was on a podcast and the host in that
15:48.0
podcast asked me, what's going on in the U.S. election over there?
15:50.2
It's, you know, we're watching all this stuff and we've got COVID and George Floyd and all
15:53.8
And I was like, what's going on in the U.S. election over there?
15:53.9
And I was like, what's going on in the U.S. election over there?
15:54.0
Should we be alarmed at what's happening in the U.S.?
15:56.8
And I said, look, we're a big, messy democracy.
16:00.5
That's what we are.
16:01.6
And that's, you know, that's what we'll always be.
16:03.3
And because we're big, we're, all of our news is international news all the time.
16:07.6
So everything, you get to see what we are in Technicolor because it's going to be on
16:12.4
everybody's news shows.
16:13.5
It's going to be on the Richard Tedarian show.
16:15.6
It's going to be everybody.
16:16.4
Everybody's going to know what is going on and it's the good, the bad, and the ugly
16:20.5
because we have an open society.
16:22.1
We have a free press.
16:23.0
That's, that's, that's, but you know what's happening?
16:25.6
Which we inherited from you.
16:27.6
I just came from Germany.
16:29.9
They're a democracy too, but a very different type of society.
16:33.1
Not as fiesta feisty as us.
16:35.9
I'll just be honest about it.
16:37.8
Philippines is so American style.
16:40.9
We lived in Germany for two years and yes, but you know, I mean, they're culturally,
16:45.7
they're just very, very different, you know.
16:47.3
Totally, totally, yeah.
16:49.3
So, but you know, I mean, that's, that's, that's the,
16:52.9
that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the,
16:53.0
that's the nature of a democracy.
16:54.1
And, but you know, the amazing thing is somehow we just muddle through.
16:57.8
You know, my dad was, he was involved in the civil rights movement.
17:01.4
He ended up in jail in, in Jackson, Mississippi for, for, for protesting, you know,
17:06.6
in the early 60s in something called the Freedom Rides of 1961.
17:10.6
Just a fascinating.
17:11.7
With the great Dr. King?
17:13.2
I mean, like this is.
17:15.1
Yeah, this was, I mean, it was really early in the civil rights movement.
17:19.0
So before many people knew who Dr. King was.
17:21.7
So the Freedom Rides of 1961 were really, I mean, if you ever just decide to just sort of,
17:29.9
you know, Google and watch, watch some fascinating stuff.
17:33.4
And really the people who were early involved in that, in that, in that event were really brave people
17:39.8
who went down into the deep South and some of them risked death.
17:46.9
So, and actually, you know, I know we're not quite there yet, but,
17:50.6
I look at what the Philippines is doing and I see some parallels with the civil rights movement
17:56.7
in the, in the form of nonviolent direct, direct action,
18:02.3
which is what the early civil rights movement was all about.
18:05.4
They would go down, they were trained not to hit back.
18:09.8
And, and what they accomplished through extraordinary bravery,
18:14.8
and my dad was part of this, I'm very proud of him,
18:17.5
was they got the nation.
18:20.6
They got the nation.
18:21.4
They got the nation.
18:21.5
They got the nation.
18:21.6
And realizing what was going on in the deep South,
18:24.6
things that the country didn't want to look at,
18:26.9
they sort of forced the country to look at because they saw things like water cannons, right?
18:32.9
I mean, that was, that was a, that was a weapon of the deep South, of the Jim Crow South at the time.
18:38.3
They, they saw the, the riots and the, and the, and the beatings and the, and the jailings
18:43.7
and all the things that happened.
18:45.0
I mean, one of the first, actually the very first mission,
18:48.7
the very first Freedom Ride,
18:50.6
ended with the bus being lit on fire at the, at the border of Alabama and Mississippi.
18:58.3
So, you know, but I, I look at what the Philippines is doing and what you're, what the, what, you know,
19:04.3
the Philippines is doing is essentially nonviolent direct action.
19:07.0
You're going and you're exercising your rights and you're showing what the oppressor is doing
19:12.4
in a case where you're simply doing what you are legally allowed to do
19:17.7
and the world is being forced to pay attention.
19:20.6
It's something that it would rather ignore.
19:22.3
Yeah, I mean, this is Satyagraha, this is the truth force that Gandhi was talking about,
19:26.5
which of course, the Gandhi civil disobedience also inspired Dr. King among others.
19:30.3
I mean, you can see a picture of Frederick Douglass up there.
19:32.3
So, I'm a big fan of the civil rights movement in the United States among my biggest heroes are Dr. King
19:38.4
and Frederick Douglass and this kind of people.
19:40.5
So, honestly, I didn't see that coming, but the story of your father is wow.
19:44.7
I mean, that was, that came out of nowhere.
19:46.4
Perhaps we have to have a separate discussion on, on, on, on civil rights movement in the United States.
19:48.3
I mean, that was, that came out of nowhere.
19:48.4
Perhaps we have to have a separate discussion on, on, on, on civil rights movement in the United States.
19:48.5
I mean, that was, that came out of nowhere. Perhaps we have to have a separate discussion on, on, on, on civil rights movement in the United States.
19:51.1
Because, you know, we're all troubled democracies in our own way.
19:53.7
I don't know what is your partisan preference, but I try to stay above the fray in that sense.
19:58.1
And sometimes, look, we are troubled democracies.
20:00.3
And in a way, we're tethered to each other because of our historical traditions.
20:04.9
And of course, I don't know how you call it in the Philippines, but you know, America's colonial past, I know.
20:09.5
But that's a long conversation.
20:11.8
But before I go to the Philippine-US aspect, because Raymond, I mean, I'm sure you have seen it.
20:16.3
But before I go to the Philippine-US aspect, because Raymond, I mean, I'm sure you have seen it.
20:18.3
Like, whenever I post something, the question is, where is America? What is America doing?
20:22.3
Your wife is from Davao, so I think you're very familiar with the line of attack of the former mayor.
20:27.3
To be honest, of course, I, as any Filipino patriot, would ask questions about what is the most we can get out of our alliance.
20:33.3
In the same way that I'm sure an American patriot would ask, what are we getting from our allies, etc.
20:37.8
But before going there, can we discuss what's going on as far as the situation on the ground is concerned?
20:45.3
What, what is China doing here?
20:48.3
a while ago, I was having a conversation with people in the know, and they were telling me, for instance,
20:52.8
the power of the water cannons, quantifiably, are much stronger than before.
20:57.8
And I just shared this footage that came out of GMA News a while ago.
21:01.8
And you could see how this is not even an offense.
21:05.3
I mean, the civil rights, I watched the footages.
21:07.8
Those are horrible, you know, the water pressure.
21:11.8
But this looks like crazy.
21:13.3
This moves a whole semi-gigantic boat.
21:16.8
That's how bad this is.
21:17.8
Can you tell us a little bit about what is this?
21:20.3
And because the conversation I want to have here, Raymond, is are we past the point of gray zone?
21:26.3
I mean, my reading is this is something between gray zone and shooting wars.
21:31.3
It's probably a totally new category because I've been following with what they've been doing to Vietnam,
21:36.3
what they've been doing to Indonesia.
21:38.3
What is your take on this on the tactical level and in terms of what's happening on the ground?
21:43.3
Yeah, I mean, I think, so gray zone is in the eye of the beholder, right?
21:46.8
And so in some ways, this is past gray zone because the Philippines has lit it up.
21:52.8
The Philippines is responsible for letting the world see what's happening in this space.
21:58.8
China exploits every square centimeter of the gray zone.
22:04.8
And so right now, I would say it's still in the gray zone because we have not got to the point where anyone in a position of political authority is saying,
22:16.8
we're now invoking Article 5.
22:18.8
Although, if you watch Admiral Aquilino testifying before Congress, you know,
22:23.8
for the commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, testifying before Congress last week,
22:27.8
he said, I'm really concerned that we could be there, you know, soon.
22:31.8
So, I mean, your question is really apt.
22:34.8
And it's something that we've actually been talking about, I think all of us have been talking about for a while,
22:39.8
is when do we get to that point?
22:42.8
When do we actually start talking, you know?
22:44.8
And when people ask me about it,
22:46.8
about, you know, the quote, invoking the Mutual Defense Treaty,
22:52.8
I often say it's kind of already been invoked, right?
22:56.8
Every single time this happens, the statements coming out of the State Department and the embassy there in Manila are,
23:03.8
you know, we stand by our Philippine allies and we remind China about the Mutual Defense Treaty.
23:08.8
So, in some ways, it's already out there on the table.
23:11.8
The question then becomes, I think what people really mean is,
23:15.8
when does the U.S. show up with gray ships and start, you know, maybe escorting, you know, resupply missions?
23:23.8
And, you know, I think that everyone's trying to stay out of that, right?
23:27.8
I mean, you've heard President Marcos talk about it.
23:30.8
I don't think China wants it.
23:32.8
I mean, China wants to keep exploiting the gray zone.
23:36.8
It's just hitting that very, very upper limit of what it is.
23:39.8
Exactly. It's hitting a ceiling.
23:40.8
I mean, it's really hitting a glass ceiling or whatever ceiling you want to call it, yeah.
23:45.8
Yeah, I mean, so, and actually, part of the reason it's hitting the ceiling is because the Philippines has made everybody look, right?
23:54.8
I mean, so, what we do at Sea Light, I mean, we do kind of a little sliver of what the Philippines has done, you know,
24:03.8
because the Philippines has pictures and video.
24:06.8
I don't have that.
24:07.8
I mean, I've got satellite images.
24:09.8
I've got, you know, automatic information system tracking.
24:12.8
I can show you what little dots on the map look like.
24:14.8
But the Philippines has reporters.
24:17.8
It has, you know, pictures that it can release.
24:20.8
And that has forced the world's attention on this.
24:23.8
And I will even venture to say, this trilateral meeting…
24:26.8
You can screen share.
24:27.8
If you have it there, I don't mind you screen sharing right now.
24:29.8
Do you want to screen share anything for the purpose of…
24:32.8
I mean, we can make it educational as you wish.
24:36.8
I mean, I can show you pictures.
24:37.8
Please, please, go ahead.
24:38.8
This is for educational purposes.
24:39.8
I mean, this is the difference with how we do it mainstream.
24:41.8
We only have five minutes to discuss.
24:43.8
And my point, that's why we need long-form discussion.
24:45.8
This has to be like a free public lecture, right?
24:48.8
So, Raymond, go ahead.
24:49.8
Please share whatever important information you have for our Kababayan,
24:54.8
our folks here who are trying to catch up.
24:58.8
There are some people who are guessing who you are by your voice.
25:00.8
So, I think that's always a good sign.
25:02.8
Is that Raymond Powell?
25:05.8
Because they're just hearing you right now, all right?
25:09.8
So, we're just trying to get in questions.
25:10.8
I'm sure as we discuss this more,
25:12.8
folks will be much more interested.
25:16.8
So, can you tell us what's going on there?
25:19.8
So, you can see this here.
25:20.8
Let's see if I can make it as…
25:23.8
Let me try to get it as large as I can.
25:29.8
Yeah, I think this is good enough.
25:30.8
Yeah, this is good.
25:32.8
So, this is a service that I use to look at what's going on at sea.
25:38.8
I'll try to give you a little more context by putting in a full day's work.
25:42.8
This right here is the action.
25:45.8
This over here is Mischief Reef.
25:47.8
And over here, you can see Ayungan Shoal, Sacatama Shoal.
25:51.8
So, you can see at all times,
25:53.8
they usually have at least a couple of maritime militia ships here.
25:57.8
And then, of course, a bunch of others circling around Mischief Reef.
26:01.8
I often will watch to see if I see…
26:05.8
Right now, what you can see down in the south of Palawan,
26:09.8
you can see a U.S.
26:14.8
Merchant Mariner, frankly, down there.
26:17.8
But if I see these ships here, the Cabra and the Sindangan,
26:22.8
if I see them leaving and going towards Sacatama Shoal or Ayungan Shoal,
26:26.8
then I usually pay a lot of attention because there might be something going on.
26:31.8
And actually, one of my first clues that something is going on
26:34.8
is a bunch of these ships over here to the left,
26:37.8
which are Chinese maritime militia, will make their way over to Mischief Reef.
26:41.8
And that'll be a clue to me that China…
26:43.8
So, all the red ones are Chinese, right?
26:46.8
So, the CN1, we see that all of these are Chinese, right?
26:50.8
So, the way that they code these things is a little odd.
26:56.8
But generally speaking, most of the red ones are going to be Chinese maritime militia.
27:02.8
You can see some Vietnamese ships.
27:03.8
Now, you're not seeing all the ships because I filter, right?
27:07.8
I'm not interested in every cargo ship that's going by.
27:10.8
If I were to actually take that away, it would be a big mess.
27:15.8
This is just to give you a sense of the proportion of distribution.
27:20.8
Actually, if you look up here, you can see this is Pagasa.
27:27.8
This is Titu Island.
27:29.8
And here is Subi Reef where the Chinese base is.
27:32.8
And you can see all of these maritime militia ships here.
27:35.8
So, here's one maritime militia ship that's not colored pink for some reason.
27:40.8
Their coating is a little bit…
27:42.8
This is the service that I'm using.
27:44.8
So, it's not perfect as far as how it paints everything.
27:47.8
In fact, part of the interesting thing about this one, if you look at this, it's categorized as a pleasure craft.
27:58.8
What's the yacht?
27:59.8
The billionaire yacht or something?
28:00.8
Russian oligarch yacht?
28:02.8
But all it is, it's just one more maritime militia ship.
28:05.8
So, actually, it's how the actual people on the ship,
28:09.8
when they code into the AIS system, they actually identify themselves as a pleasure craft.
28:14.8
So, just to be clear, these are self-declared Chinese vessels that obviously includes the ones that they're turning off their identification systems, right?
28:23.8
I mean, that's another layer, right?
28:25.8
That's a totally different layer.
28:26.8
These are the ones that are shameless enough to be out there and shameless enough to lie about the exact nature of their raison d'être, right?
28:35.8
Well, most of them, of course, are categorized as fishing ships.
28:38.8
You can see this one is a fishing ship.
28:40.8
And China is really cagey about, it doesn't deny that it has a maritime militia.
28:45.8
It just will never tell you exactly which ship is maritime militia.
28:49.8
Now, all of these are clearly maritime militia.
28:52.8
They're only ever involved in doing security operations.
28:55.8
And in this case, what they're involved in doing is essentially intimidating the people at Pagasa.
29:04.8
They're essentially like an armada, right?
29:06.8
Raymond, again, for the purpose of some reason,
29:08.8
for our audience who may not be keeping up with the whole literature,
29:11.8
can we give a little bit of background about,
29:13.8
I mean, so basically, this is China's version of people's war at sea, right?
29:17.8
Which is a very communist Soviet idea.
29:20.8
The Vietnamese have it, this idea that you really don't separate the navy from the coast guard,
29:25.8
from patriotic ordinary citizens.
29:28.8
They're all part of defense of motherland, blah, blah, blah.
29:30.8
So, can you give us a little bit of background about these Chinese maritime militia forces,
29:34.8
their training, their resources?
29:36.8
How can we say that they're really attached to the Gulf?
29:39.8
What if they're, Raymond, they're like you, they're volunteers.
29:42.8
You know, they're doing it for the, you know what I'm saying?
29:44.8
How does it work, if you can tell our audience?
29:47.8
Well, so maritime militia is a really funny group.
29:51.8
And by the way, none of them are volunteers.
29:53.8
They are all getting paid.
29:54.8
Exactly. At least their fuel costs and all, right?
29:57.8
Well, so they've actually got two categories of maritime militia.
30:01.8
And all the ones that you see that I'm able to track,
30:04.8
almost all of them are what we sort of refer to as the professional militia.
30:08.8
So, all they ever do is security operations.
30:12.8
And they are paid for that purpose.
30:14.8
They are paid by the government to do that exact thing.
30:16.8
They don't even, they call themselves fishing ships,
30:20.8
and they look like fishing ships when you look at them,
30:22.8
but they never, ever, ever fish.
30:24.8
So, they do full-time security operations.
30:27.8
There's another category, which also can fish but seldom fishes,
30:33.8
and they're referred to as the Spratly Backbone Vessels.
30:36.8
And they are basically given, they're commercial,
30:39.8
but they're given a subsidy from the government to simply exist
30:43.8
in the Spratly Archipelago for 280 days a year.
30:47.8
So, as long as they...
30:49.8
Mercenary residents. Like, mercenary.
30:51.8
Like, just stay there, squat there, hold the line.
30:55.8
Exactly. Exactly. Right.
30:57.8
So, you know, they don't have to fish because, you know,
31:00.8
honestly, they're getting quite enough money just by hanging around.
31:03.8
From the government.
31:04.8
And those are the ones you see, they'll be the ones that are all tied up together.
31:08.8
We call it rafting.
31:09.8
You know, there's nothing for them to do except for assert Chinese sovereignty
31:13.8
by sitting around and saying,
31:16.8
okay, we're here, what are you going to do about it?
31:18.8
Right? And actually, the funny thing is,
31:21.8
they're not doing anything technically illegal as long as they don't fish.
31:25.8
When you talk about an exclusive economic zone,
31:29.8
so the ones, for example, at Whitson Reef,
31:31.8
where there are well over 100 of them right now,
31:33.8
as long as they don't fish, they're allowed to be there.
31:36.8
So this is the one Philippine Reef, just for our Philippine audience.
31:39.8
Sorry, I just have to give the Philippine names here.
31:41.8
No, absolutely. I appreciate that.
31:43.8
You know, they're technically allowed to be there because they are not exploiting the resources.
31:49.8
Now, of course, China claims the resources. They claim everything.
31:52.8
And by them being there, they're claiming the reef.
31:56.8
They're claiming that water.
31:58.8
But if you turn to the page in international law and say,
32:02.8
can they be there?
32:04.8
Well, you look at the exclusive economic zone,
32:07.8
200 nautical miles out from the Philippine Coast Guard,
32:09.8
and you say, okay, it's the Philippine EEZ,
32:12.8
but they're not fishing.
32:14.8
So as long as they're not fishing, technically they're not breaking the law.
32:17.8
It's very strange.
32:18.8
Now, what they're doing is extremely obnoxious,
32:20.8
and it is asserting something that is illegal,
32:26.8
China's ownership or sovereignty.
32:30.8
They're asserting that.
32:31.8
But it's not illegal under the law to do that.
32:35.8
But they get a subsidy to go where they're told to go.
32:39.8
So if the PLA, the People's Liberation Army says,
32:43.8
actually, we'd rather have you over at Iroquois Reef right now,
32:46.8
then they have to go over there.
32:48.8
But they don't have to do anything.
32:49.8
They just have to sit there.
32:51.8
But obviously, sometimes they fish just for the sake of justifying their label, right?
32:56.8
Which is not also good because there are so many of them, right?
33:02.8
So, I mean, that's what makes it so hard, right?
33:05.8
So, you know, China, when they talk about these guys,
33:08.8
they will admit they have a maritime militia.
33:10.8
They just won't admit which ships are maritime militia.
33:13.8
So you'll point at something.
33:15.8
You'll say, well, clearly, that's maritime militia.
33:17.8
And they'll say, well, how do you know?
33:18.8
I mean, what's your proof?
33:19.8
Give me your proof.
33:20.8
So ambiguity still.
33:21.8
The gray zone is also in terms of this.
33:24.8
But, Raymond, what is your hunch in terms of distribution
33:28.8
between the two types of the maritime militia?
33:31.8
The auxiliary versus the core of cavalry or whatever, infantry forces.
33:38.8
So the professional militia are a smaller number than the sort of the Spratly backbone vessels.
33:44.8
It's like 20, 25 percent, something like that.
33:47.8
You know, it's so hard to tell because it's so hard to count.
33:50.8
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
33:51.8
But yeah, I'd say, yeah, certainly, probably, you know, a quarter maybe is a fair...
33:55.8
20, 25 percent, yeah.
33:57.8
You know, the ones...
34:00.8
I actually have some benefit of being able to identify the professional because almost
34:05.8
all of them have the same name, the Chong San Sha Yu name that...
34:11.8
And of course, Yu, and of course, I'm not saying this correctly in Mandarin because
34:15.8
I'm not a Mandarin speaker, but means fish.
34:18.8
So every single one of those vessels has a name that ends in Y-U because that means fish.
34:24.8
And they're all supposed to be fishing vessels.
34:27.8
But of course, they don't fish.
34:28.8
And those Chong San Sha Yu vessels, and again, I'm completely butchering that name, again,
34:35.8
not a Mandarin speaker, but those are all of the professional militia type.
34:40.8
And so when I see those, I automatically know what they're up to.
34:44.8
And those are the ones you see blocking and sometimes colliding with the resupply vessels
34:52.8
and those kinds of things because that's what they do all the time.
34:55.8
They are purpose-built to look like fishing ships but to act like maritime militia.
35:01.8
Whereas the other ships, the Spratly backbone vessels, were originally purpose-built to
35:06.8
fish, but they've had their hulls reinforced and they are now, you know, pretty much full-time
35:12.8
acting as militia ships.
35:13.8
They're just not as...
35:14.8
They're not sort of involved in as much direct action as the professional militia.
35:20.8
One more question.
35:21.8
I mean, obviously, just to give you a background about this.
35:24.8
I mean, the whole naval strategy of China used to be quite messy during the Hu Jintao administration.
35:29.8
They used to have like the five dragons, like different agencies fighting among each other,
35:34.8
you know, something that you see at the local government level in a lot of developing countries, right?
35:38.8
But eventually, they consolidated that.
35:40.8
And in recent years, we see that the Chinese maritime militia forces are more or less officially and openly
35:46.8
under the command of their navy.
35:48.8
So I think for some...
35:49.8
The reason I'm saying this thing in Raymond is because we have a lot of friends out there
35:52.8
who are spreading a lot of disinformation.
35:54.8
They're trying to say, oh, no, but these are innocent fishermen, et cetera.
35:57.8
Now, let's talk about numbers.
35:59.8
Are we talking about dozens, hundreds, thousands?
36:03.8
I mean, the numbers we have been seeing in AMTI are up to 200 sometimes, for instance.
36:07.8
Parking and squatting and swarming, I'd rather say, in the area.
36:12.8
And just to give a context, I mean, I see this in four phases.
36:15.8
Like phase one was the massive reclamation that we had early on from December 2013 onwards.
36:22.8
Before that, I'm sorry.
36:23.8
It's the administrative regions they had to establish, central city, et cetera, from 2012.
36:28.8
And in 2013, the reclamation.
36:30.8
Now, then we had militarization, obviously, putting weapon systems, all sorts of different anti-electronic warfare.
36:37.8
But now we're phase four, which is, I call it militiaization, right?
36:41.8
From militarization to using militias more aggressively.
36:44.8
And my sense is that level five would be an ADIZ or air defense identification.
36:50.8
But God willing, we're not there yet.
36:51.8
We can have the conversation about how to avoid it.
36:52.8
We can have the conversation about how to avoid that scenario.
36:54.8
But again, on the level of the militia, what numbers are we looking at here, just for people to understand the gravity of the challenge here?
37:02.8
So I think the estimates that I've seen, and they're only estimates because they're never exactly defined.
37:12.8
And as you get further north, what ships up in the East China Sea, for example, are doing the same kind of thing.
37:20.8
So I think the estimates mostly that I've seen are in the couple of thousand range.
37:26.8
But in the South China Sea at any given time, and I'm talking about the entire South China Sea,
37:31.8
and I know there can be some discussion about what qualifies as the West Philippine Sea as far as, and in terms of the entire South China Sea.
37:39.8
Well, it's our exclusive economic zone.
37:40.8
Whatever false feelings, anything beyond that, it's not West Philippine Sea.
37:43.8
I think I have to be clear to our mic of a buy.
37:46.8
We're not claiming the entire basin like some country there, right?
37:50.8
We're just claiming what is ours, which is the exclusive economic zone.
37:52.8
Just to be clear, this is...
37:53.8
Because I work in the Philippine Congress when we passed this resolution, the resolution of the West Philippine Sea, renaming it.
38:00.8
And we were crystal clear, we are not claiming the entire waters.
38:03.8
I mean, the Vietnamese can still call their own East Sea or whatever.
38:08.8
This is just our exclusive economic zone, 200 nautical miles, yeah.
38:11.8
So, but if you look at the entire South China Sea, I mean, I think at any given time,
38:15.8
you're probably talking about several hundred militia at sea.
38:19.8
At a given time, there's far less around Lunar New Year.
38:24.8
As I said, they only...
38:25.8
The Spratly Backbone Fleet only has to be at sea 280 days a year.
38:29.8
And most of those ships take the Lunar New Year kind of holiday as their extended holiday.
38:34.8
And they'll all go home for that period of time.
38:36.8
So all of a sudden, you'll see, you know, Whitsun Reef where there will be, you know...
38:42.8
Right now, they're well over 100.
38:44.8
They'll go down to 20.
38:46.8
And so, you know...
38:47.8
So at any given time...
38:48.8
There will be anywhere from, you know, say, you know, dozens to hundreds in the South China Sea.
38:55.8
Frankly, most of those are in the West Philippine Sea.
38:58.8
And because that's where China spends most of its time asserting its sovereignty or jurisdiction using the militia.
39:06.8
I mean, you look at places...
39:07.8
Again, Whitsun Reef is probably the biggest gathering place.
39:10.8
But you also have Sabina Shoal where there are, you know, about 26, I think, at last count, militia there.
39:17.8
Last I saw, there were about 10 up at Iroquois Reef.
39:20.8
Some of those may actually be fishing.
39:23.8
And, you know, there are a couple around...
39:25.8
There are some around Scarborough Shoal which, you know, where they're obviously, you know, carrying out something of a blockade of the shoal together with the China Coast Guard.
39:37.8
And really and frankly, at this point, the gap between what the China Coast Guard does and what the maritime militia do
39:46.8
is really fuzzy as well.
39:48.8
It's all part of this gray zone activity.
39:50.8
And, you know, I'll just say this.
39:52.8
I mean, the China Coast Guard does not act like any other Coast Guard in the world.
39:58.8
I mean, they are...
40:00.8
But they don't look like a Coast Guard too.
40:02.8
I mean, they got huge warship level kind of sizes and all.
40:06.8
Yeah, their largest ship is 12,000 tons.
40:08.8
I mean, it's crazy.
40:10.8
It basically looks like a cruise ship, you know, going around.
40:15.8
And so they are...
40:16.8
Many of those ships are there for almost the sole purpose of asserting sovereignty.
40:21.8
And, of course, they can do it with the size of the ship but they can also do it with a water cannon or other aggressive actions.
40:30.8
Now, let's talk about options ahead.
40:33.8
I mean, from, of course, your perspective.
40:36.8
I have my own take on this but I'm interested to see what is your take.
40:39.8
As an American, how do you think that your country can be most helpful to the Philippines?
40:45.8
I mean, just to give a context, obviously, how should I put it?
40:49.8
I mean, I think there is definitely more than a grain of truth that the Philippines has had huge levels of dependency on the United States for quite some time.
40:59.8
I think it's hard to argue against that unless you're being sentimental, emotional about it.
41:04.8
From my understanding of dealing with a lot of people in the D.C. and all, I think there was this implicit idea like, ah, Philippines, you know, they might drag us into something.
41:12.8
But the good thing with the timing of things...
41:13.8
But the good thing with the timing of your engagement with this issue more directly, obviously, I've been following this for quite some time,
41:20.8
is that the Philippines is starting to also, you know, get things together, right?
41:24.8
Get its act together.
41:25.8
A little bit of modernization here, a little build up there.
41:28.8
So, my sense is the challenge here is how the Philippines can show that it can stand up on its own as it gradually builds up its capabilities.
41:39.8
Because, you know, of course, Raymond, we can have a long conversation about Duterte.
41:43.8
Marco's political decision.
41:45.8
But political decision is one thing.
41:46.8
Capacity is another thing.
41:48.8
The wheel on the ground operation is another thing.
41:51.8
So, now that those things are coming together in a good way, I'm very happy about the direction of the Philippine foreign policy.
41:58.8
Of course, the dilemma there is still the Philippines is not 100 percent at its, you know, in terms of...
42:05.8
I mean, in economics, we call it, you know, production, you know, capacity frontier, right?
42:09.8
Like what you can reach at certain...
42:12.8
So, we're not there yet.
42:13.8
So, how do you also make sure that you leverage your alliance with the United States without feeding into this narrative of China and also this tendency, I would rather say, of dependency?
42:24.8
This, unfortunately, semi-institutionalized tendency.
42:28.8
Because, you know, the Philippines is not the only U.S. ally.
42:32.8
There's Australia.
42:33.8
But, frankly speaking, they have significant capabilities of their own, right?
42:36.8
To also help international efforts all the way in the Horn of Africa.
42:40.8
So, Philippines is not there yet.
42:42.8
That's hopefully the direction we're going to move towards.
42:44.8
And, you know, I've interviewed folks from National Security Council, among others, which people will see on my other shows.
42:49.8
But I just want to understand, as an American who loves the Philippines, married to the Philippines, what do you think is the Goldilocks, right?
42:55.8
What's the good balance there whereby America can be there for the Philippines but not undermine strategic agency of the Philippines and its self-reliance initiative?
43:07.8
Well, I mean, so, I think you start with the general concept.
43:12.8
I mean, you know, the Philippines is in a large, you know, say, a larger force like, say, Australia.
43:18.8
Of course, I spent three years in Australia as the defense attache.
43:20.8
And they got a steady stream of Chinese propaganda saying you're just the tool of the United States.
43:25.8
And so, even, you know, it's not like the Philippines is alone.
43:28.8
But you're, obviously, you're very correct that the Philippines, especially being a former colony of the United States, is especially susceptible to this.
43:35.8
Thanks for saying it as it is, right?
43:37.8
I mean, like, I'm sorry, everyone, because I see a lot of tiptoeing around it.
43:41.8
I also hear an American official openly calling it, you know, for what it is.
43:45.8
I mean, this is very different.
43:46.8
I mean, you've been in Australia.
43:47.8
They always start with acknowledging what they did to Aboriginals, right?
43:50.8
Germany just came in, you know, their recognition of what they did in Holocaust and all.
43:54.8
I'm not saying the colonialism of Philippines is at the same level.
43:57.8
But I'm glad to see that there's a recognition of that.
44:00.8
There is a colonial past.
44:01.8
And that's what feeds the Dutertes of this world, right?
44:05.8
They weaponize that history to turn it into a pro-China narrative.
44:10.8
I want to do this because, you know, I want to get rid of the usual trolling that we get, right?
44:13.8
Like, I want to shut them down as early as now.
44:17.8
No, I mean, we started off by talking about the Jim Crow South in the United States.
44:22.8
We've got our own.
44:23.8
Everybody's got their own history.
44:24.8
The difference between our history and, say, China's history is we don't constantly rewrite it to suit our narrative.
44:31.8
You know, we make actual museums to tell everybody what we did.
44:39.8
To show our warts as well.
44:41.8
You know, so we're very, you know, we're an open society just like the Philippines is an open society.
44:46.8
So, you know, getting to your question, though, you know, I think that, you know, part of the way we deal with it is by talking about it, by just being honest about it.
44:54.8
Part of the way we deal with it is by sort of not dwelling on some of, I mean, if I posted every Global Times cartoon that shows the Philippines as being a pawn of the United States, I'd do nothing else because that's all they talk about.
45:08.8
So the Philippines will be, as an ally of the U.S., and the U.S. is obviously a much larger country with a much stronger military, is going to continue to have this relationship.
45:19.8
But as we said at the beginning, you know, the Philippines has its own national interests.
45:26.8
And, you know, I think that you just have to, you know, just have to get comfortable with the fact that that's just the way it is.
45:33.8
China loves to point out that it opposes, you know, all groupings.
45:37.8
All groupings of countries or blocks of countries.
45:40.8
But that's the entire Western system.
45:43.8
You know, it's the, you know, look at NATO.
45:46.8
Look at the whole, you know, the whole U.S. international security arrangement is a network of allies and partners.
45:54.8
So, you know, that we rely on that.
45:57.8
If we, you know, I understand that there are people in the United States who are isolationists in nature and would like to sort of just sort of have Fortress America.
46:05.8
But that has never been the case.
46:06.8
That has never been the U.S. security posture.
46:09.8
And, you know, again, I was a U.S. defense attache during the Trump administration when there were a lot of very loud isolationist voices in the United States.
46:20.8
And they're still out there.
46:22.8
But, you know, even the Trump administration was essentially networked and partnered up with a lot of allies.
46:28.8
Of course, somehow, and I always point at this.
46:33.8
The U.S.-Philippine alliance endured.
46:36.8
Six years of Rodrigo Duterte who wanted nothing more than to sever that alliance.
46:40.8
And in the end, couldn't do it because the institutional ties are so strong and so important to both countries.
46:48.8
And, you know, that in the end, he simply couldn't do it.
46:52.8
And so I am actually very bullish and optimistic.
46:56.8
And maybe I'm a natural optimist.
46:58.8
But I'm bullish on the future of the alliance because I think that we've proven ourselves through some of the most weird things.
47:06.8
And interesting political times we've ever seen.
47:09.8
So I think very Nietzschean, as you can see, what doesn't kill the alliance makes it stronger, right?
47:15.8
And I think the term being used nowadays is hyperdrive.
47:18.8
I think this just tells us that we have to have more of this conversation soon.
47:24.8
I mean, of course, as we get closer to your elections and your interesting times.
47:28.8
I mean, I was just in Washington D.C. a few weeks earlier.
47:31.8
And believe me, we had many interesting discussions there about what's coming up, right?
47:36.8
But probably we have to talk more about what could the Trump 2.0 administration mean.
47:40.8
I mean, you are in the center where many of the ex-top officials of Trump won.
47:45.8
I doubt any of them will go back again.
47:47.8
But I think we can have an interesting conversation later.
47:49.8
But now, just for the purpose of big picture understanding.
47:52.8
Again, Raymond, you know the propaganda, right?
47:56.8
Which is this kind of simplistic idea.
47:58.8
But of course, America is for its own national interest.
48:01.8
It's like saying water is wet.
48:03.8
Obviously, America is for its own national interest.
48:05.8
But what is the level of confluence of interest here for the Philippines to feel reliably confident?
48:14.8
But reliably confident that if push comes to shove, America will be there.
48:18.8
Because, again, Raymond, I'm saying this because before, I would say, 2019,
48:23.8
essentially from Nixon administration until the end of Obama administration,
48:28.8
to be honest, I would say there was more ambiguity than strategy.
48:31.8
The strategic ambiguity was very questionable in terms of its efficacy.
48:34.8
And I'll tell you very well, when Obama was here in Manila in 2014,
48:37.8
twice he was asked by my colleagues, one from ABS-CBN, one from Manila Bulletin,
48:43.8
asked, will you come to the Philippines rescue?
48:46.8
Were it to be war?
48:47.8
Again, this is hypothetical.
48:49.8
But these hypothetical questions have huge psychological and geopolitical implications.
48:54.8
Not to mention domestic political implications.
48:56.8
And the reason I ask this, Raymond, is because we saw in the case of Japan just a few days earlier,
49:01.8
Obama making it clear that they will stand with Japan in an event like this.
49:04.8
I'm sorry, Senkaku, right?
49:07.8
I'm being nice to the Taiwanese, by the way, not to China.
49:10.8
And for a certain reason, throughout many administrations, ironically, until Duterte,
49:17.8
there was not that clarity, right?
49:19.8
So can you tell me what is your understanding of that situation?
49:26.8
I mean, whatever it is, is it reassuring?
49:28.8
And why do you think America will be there?
49:30.8
Obviously, we're all trying to avoid that.
49:32.8
This is about deterrence.
49:34.8
But if push comes to shove, why should the Filipino people feel reliably confident
49:37.8
about their alliance with the United States?
49:39.8
Should push come to shove?
49:41.8
So I think that there are two answers to that.
49:45.8
One kind of goes back to my previous answer, talking about the institutional ties,
49:49.8
which are really very strong, and the cultural ties and all of that stuff.
49:53.8
And if I were still in government, I would talk only about that, right?
49:57.8
But because I'm not, I'm unchained, I can tell it like it is.
50:01.8
China is a huge reason, right?
50:04.8
Even the most, a lot of the most isolationist people in the United States admit there's
50:11.8
a huge China security problem.
50:13.8
And the Philippines is extremely important to addressing the China security problem.
50:18.8
So take a guy like Bridge Colby, who is talking a lot about-
50:23.8
I was about to just say his name.
50:24.8
Sorry, we had him on our show.
50:26.8
I was just about to say El Bridge Colby.
50:31.8
Yeah, I mean, so I mean, a great example.
50:32.8
So here's a person who is saying,
50:33.8
a person who is saying things like, you know,
50:35.8
we should not overcommit to Ukraine and the Middle East and all these things.
50:39.8
But he's saying that because China, China, China, China, China.
50:42.8
Asia first, Asia first.
50:43.8
Yeah, Asia first strategy.
50:44.8
It's a prioritization thing.
50:46.8
And you can't dissociate the Philippines' strategic position from that bigger problem.
50:55.8
So, you know, again, for me, you know, for Ray Powell,
51:00.8
who's married to the Philippines for three decades,
51:02.8
you know, I'm all about, you know, the Philippines.
51:04.8
I think about the Philippines' national interest all the time.
51:08.8
But if I take that hat off and I just put on my Team USA hat,
51:13.8
I think, well, we've got this huge China problem.
51:16.8
And if we lose our position in the Philippines, Katie, bar the door.
51:21.8
I mean, it is, you know, we are then in a huge problem.
51:26.8
And so, you know, strengthening the Philippines is even in the prioritizers,
51:30.8
even in the Bridge Colby's strategy,
51:31.8
even in the Bridge Colby's, you know, interests or view of the world,
51:35.8
is in America's national interest.
51:38.8
Can we spell that a little bit before we end?
51:40.8
Hopefully, just our first.
51:42.8
Because there's so much to discuss.
51:44.8
And hopefully, we can have it a little bit at a better time later on or a better day.
51:49.8
No, just a question on this.
51:51.8
Why can the United States afford to not do anything should things go crazy for the Philippines?
51:57.8
Can you tell us a little bit about the importance of geography,
51:59.8
the impact on the networks of alliance,
52:01.8
obviously, it's not going to look good for America if they're just going to abandon the Philippines, right?
52:05.8
I mean, can you just spell things a little bit out for some friends
52:08.8
who are unwilling to understand how these things work, how alliances work?
52:14.8
And I think, you know, the last point is a really important one,
52:17.8
which is that if the United States abandons an alliance,
52:22.8
I mean, even I am still answering questions all the time about what we failed to do in 2012
52:30.8
when the Philippines lost Scarborough Shoal, right?
52:33.8
So, any time we don't...
52:35.8
And Mr. Freeman, I would also add to that.
52:38.8
I think we also feel quite let down, to be honest, on the Mr. Freeman.
52:42.8
I remember very well in an event in Harvard,
52:45.8
Joseph Nye, who served back then in the Clinton administration,
52:48.8
was proudly saying, we have no horse in that fight.
52:50.8
But this 1995-1996 is when the Clinton administration sent what?
52:55.8
Not one, but two striker groups to defend Taiwan, in a sense.
52:59.8
And Taiwan is not even a treaty ally.
53:01.8
So, I hope people in the U.S. also understand where we're coming from.
53:05.8
We're not being just some irrational anti...
53:08.8
This is not some Duterte stuff.
53:09.8
This is, I think, a legitimate patriotic question that every Filipino asks.
53:12.8
And I don't want to put you on the side.
53:14.8
I just want us to spell it out that this is about, you know,
53:18.8
hard-edged national interests and convergence of those interests.
53:23.8
No, and I think it's all fair, right?
53:25.8
And every country acts in its national interest, right?
53:28.8
So, including the United States, including the Philippines, including China.
53:32.8
And so, and it's important to recognize sort of the trajectory of things.
53:37.8
1995 was a time the Cold War was over.
53:41.8
There was a big...
53:42.8
There was a lot of talk about taking the peace dividend.
53:44.8
There was, you know, we had actually been sort of ejected from the Philippines.
53:49.8
Of course, I was there near the end of that as a young airman in the Air Force.
53:55.8
There was, you know, the sort of...
53:57.8
The residue of the first Marcos administration, the dictatorship.
54:01.8
All of that was sort of very fresh back then.
54:04.8
And so, it was a very different environment.
54:06.8
2012, when we talk about Scarborough Shoal,
54:09.8
we were still under kind of our China delusion in the United States
54:13.8
where we were trying to figure out how do we get this country into the fold.
54:17.8
You know, just a little more capitalism will make them more democratic.
54:20.8
And then eventually, they'll be, you know...
54:22.8
We had these idealistic ideas about what was going to happen with China.
54:26.8
And, you know, I think at this point, I guess it's safe to say we're over that.
54:30.8
You know, we have kind of woken up.
54:32.8
I mean, now we're talking about, you know, banning a social media app from the...
54:37.8
We're talking about forcing the sale of the social media.
54:41.8
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
54:42.8
Not that from Light Dance Beijing.
54:44.8
So, yeah, I mean...
54:46.8
So, I think, you know, that's another thing I think that the Philippines can sort of take some comfort in
54:53.8
is that we are not walking around in a daze.
54:55.8
I was in Australia when the 2017 National Security Strategy was released
55:01.8
and the 2018 National Defense Strategy.
55:03.8
Those were basically authored by, you know, the H.R. McMaster National Security Agency
55:09.8
or the National Security Advisor and Jim Mattis in the Pentagon.
55:14.8
And that was kind of our formal national awakening where we said,
55:17.8
Okay, the reality is that we're in a competition with China.
55:21.8
And that's just the reality.
55:23.8
And it's funny that when you...
55:25.8
When we actually got those documents and we looked at them and we were like,
55:27.8
Well, yeah, you know, but somehow we weren't acting like that until we got the documents.
55:34.8
I mean, we were still kind of under this idea that, you know,
55:37.8
somehow capitalism was going to turn into democracy
55:40.8
and somehow China was going to become a responsible stakeholder.
55:43.8
And so, that was a hugely transformational time.
55:47.8
And so, you know, I think that that has helped the United States realize
55:50.8
that when we look at our network of allies and partners in Asia,
55:54.8
boy, that's important now.
55:56.8
You know, and I am really actually enthused about this upcoming summit in Washington, D.C.
56:02.8
in mid-April, April the 11th,
56:05.8
when President Biden is going to be hosting President Marcos and Prime Minister Kishida.
56:09.8
This is, I think, a big event.
56:13.8
It's a very symbolic event.
56:15.8
I hope it has some deliverables.
56:18.8
And I can't imagine that, you know, pictures from what happened over the weekend,
56:23.8
off of Ayung and Shoal, won't be front and center for a lot of those discussions.
56:29.8
Yeah, thank you very much.
56:30.8
I think that perfectly sets the tone, hopefully, for our next catch-up,
56:33.8
maybe just before or right after the trilateral summit.
56:37.8
Now it's official.
56:38.8
I think some of us, you know, have been informed about this for quite some time,
56:41.8
but it's official.
56:42.8
So, there will be a trilateral summit in the White House, Japan, Philippines, U.S.,
56:46.8
and this looks like a new era whereby it's not just bilateral,
56:51.8
it's just not big power summit.
56:53.8
Small power, it's really trilateral,
56:55.8
and it's getting increasingly symmetrical and collaborative.
56:58.8
And obviously, that also has to do one thing or another with Taiwan,
57:01.8
which is something that we can also discuss more in the, hopefully, next episodes.
57:05.8
Thank you so much, Raymond Powell from Gordian Knott Center for National Security Innovation.
57:09.8
A volunteer, right?
57:11.8
Not the Chinese militia style of volunteer, though.
57:14.8
A very dedicated volunteer.
57:16.8
Although, if Mark Lopez has any idea where that $500 million propaganda budget I'm supposed to be directing is,
57:22.8
I'd appreciate it if you could lead me in that direction.
57:24.8
Why do you give these people air time?
57:26.8
They don't exist, all right?
57:29.8
Is this Kim Jong Un?
57:32.8
Okay, I'm going to be politically correct.
57:34.8
I'm sorry about that.
57:35.8
Thank you so much, Raymond, for joining us.
57:37.8
And again, how can folks reach your Twitter?
57:42.8
But also, more importantly, Sea Light.
57:44.8
Where can they reach your updates, the maps, everything that you shared with us a while ago?
57:50.8
It's sea-light.live.
57:51.8
We weren't able to get the .org or the .com, but we got sea-light.live.
57:54.8
So that's where they can find our website.
57:57.8
And of course, at Gordian Knott Ray on Twitter or X is where you can find my ramblings,
58:03.8
which actually is probably, you know, I put a lot more, as does everybody.
58:09.8
I put a lot more out on the social media just because it's a lot less work than making a blog post.
58:15.8
But both the blog on sea-light.live and, by the way, we have a lot of resources on sea-light.live.
58:19.8
If you go to the resources page, we connect to things like the Arbitral Tribunal ruling
58:25.8
and other important works that have been written about the South China Sea and the West Philippine Sea
58:30.8
and China's maritime militia and all of that stuff.
58:32.8
So there's a lot there that people can look at.
58:35.8
Thank you very much for that, Raymond.
58:37.8
Again, I hope this is just the beginning of a longer series of conversation,
58:42.8
especially as we head into your interesting elections in November.
58:45.8
But so much, so much is going on.
58:47.8
And hopefully, we can discuss about the broader resources.
58:48.8
We can discuss about the broader region beyond our countries and the Philippines and the U.S.
58:53.8
Because, you know, South China Sea is also about a whole range of other issues.
58:57.8
Thank you so much again, Raymond.
58:58.8
And catch you soon.
58:59.8
Have a beautiful morning there in California.
59:02.8
All right. Thanks, Richard.
59:03.8
This has been a lot of fun.
59:04.8
Salamat. Thank you very much.
59:06.8
Because Davao, your wife, is trying.
59:12.8
Thank you so much again for joining us here.
59:13.8
That was Raymond Powell.
59:14.8
Of course, as some of you may know him by his voice.
59:18.8
joining us live from California.
59:20.8
As you know, of course, iba yung time zone there.
59:22.8
We're looking at like 16 hours difference.
59:24.8
So, thankfully for him, 6am pa lang.
59:26.8
Gumising na siya para sa atin.
59:27.8
So, I know medyo late sa panahon natin.
59:29.8
Pero ganun, ganun tayo kamahal na mga...
59:32.8
Nagmamahal din sa ating mga karagatan at saka mga interests natin.
59:38.8
We'll even have more of this discussion.
59:40.8
As you see, you know, I don't pull punches.
59:42.8
We'll ask even more about U.S.-Philippine alliance.
59:44.8
And as you can see, Raymond recognizes a lot of shortcomings.
59:48.8
The United States has had throughout the decades.
59:50.8
But then again, Philippines also has a lot of shortcomings for its own.
59:54.8
After all, why should we even rely on a foreign country to defend us?
59:57.8
We have to rely on ourself ultimately.
59:59.8
But that's what I appreciate, the honesty.
60:01.8
And yeah, I'm glad he used the word colony.
60:03.8
Indeed, we were a colony of the United States.
60:05.8
That's a term I usually don't hear from especially people in the American government.
60:10.8
Thank you very much.
60:11.8
And let's continue this conversation.
60:15.8
And also check yung latest updates natin
60:18.8
Para makita rin yung nangyari.
60:21.8
Final version na ito, ilabas natin bukas hopefully.
60:23.8
Para makita niyo rin yung mga maps na pinakita niya.
60:25.8
Very, very useful maps.
60:26.8
Kaya makulit niyan si Raymond
60:28.8
because he has a lot of access to the data.
60:30.8
Thank you very much.
60:32.8
And have a good night.
