Trending Now
We have updated our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for Eurasia Group and its affiliates, including GZERO Media, to clarify the types of data we collect, how we collect it, how we use data and with whom we share data. By using our website you consent to our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy, including the transfer of your personal data to the United States from your country of residence, and our use of cookies described in our Cookie Policy.
{{ subpage.title }}
Filipino activists hold candles during a protest vigil supporting former President Rodrigo Duterte's arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court, in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines, March 11, 2025.
Duterte arrested for drug war
Philippine authorities on Tuesday arrested former President Rodrigo Duterte in Manila on an International Criminal Court warrant for alleged crimes against humanity linked to his deadly drug crackdown. He was reportedly put on a plane headed for The Hague within hours of being detained.
Duterte’s drug war started during his 22-year reign as the mayor of Davao and ramped up after he became president in 2016. An estimated 30,000 Filipinos were killed by police throughout that period, which led the ICC to start looking into the killings back in 2018. Shortly after the court’s probe got underway, Duterte withdrew the Philippines from the ICC.
This has led to questions about the ICC’s jurisdiction. But Rutgers Law professor Adil Haque says “the court retains jurisdiction over crimes committed before the Philippines’ withdrawal in 2019.”
It is less clear, however, whether Philippine law allows him to be extradited to The Hague. And the former president still has lots of support back home, says International Crisis Group’s Georgi Englebrecht. “As of now, there are several rallies in cities in Mindanao — Davao, Cotabato, Iligan, Cagayan de Oro as well as online outcry about the decision. I think we can expect more rallies,” he said.
Will there be much political fallout? Experts do not believe serious upheaval is likely or that the arrest will have much impact on the midterm elections in May.
But one thing is clear: The massive rift between the country’s political dynasties, the Marcos and Duterte families, is alive and well.
A Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy Harbin Z-9 helicopter sits on CNS Yulin during a display of warships ahead of an exhibition at Changi Naval Base in Singapore on May 18, 2015.
China’s “dangerous” helicopter maneuver escalates tensions with US and Philippines
A Chinese naval helicopter flew nearly 10 feet from a Philippine patrol plane on Tuesday over a contested reef in the South China Sea, escalating tensions with Manila and Washington in the airspace over international waterways Beijing claims as its own.
The move, which the US condemned as a “dangerous maneuver,” comes months after a series of seaborne attacks in which Chinese coast guard vessels rammed Philippine ships.
Both Beijing and Manila claim the Scarborough Shoal – known in China as Huangyan Island and in the Philippines as Panatag Shoal or Bajo de Masinloc – located less than 150 miles off the west coast of the main Philippine island of Luzon. But China has controlled the waters around the unpopulated reef since 2012. In recent months, the Philippines and the US have sought to assert Manila’s sovereignty by flying air patrols over the shoal.
In a tense 30-minute standoff on Tuesday, a gray People’s Liberation Army naval Harbin Z-9 chopper hovered just over the wing of a Philippine C-208 light utility plane after Beijing said the Philippines “illegally invaded the airspace” over the shoal. Washington rebuked the move against its ally, whose 74-year mutual defense treaty both the Biden and Trump administrations have sought to reinforce over the past year.
“We condemn the dangerous maneuvers by a PLA Navy helicopter that endangered pilots and passengers on a Philippine air mission,” MaryKay Carlson, the US ambassador to Manila, wrote in a post on X. “We call on China to refrain from coercive actions and settle its disputes peacefully in accordance with international law.”
Flashback to a heated summer: Last June, Chinese coast guards wielding knives and axes rammed their ship into a Filipino vessel, injuring eight sailors and severing the thumb of one. The attack was intended to halt a resupply mission to a Philippine outpost in the Sierra Madre, a rusting World War II vessel run aground years ago on the shoal to mark Manila’s claim. China accused the Philippines of secretly hauling equipment to reinforce the decaying ship among food and water supplies for Philippine marines stationed on the outpost.
The bottom line: “While scary, this is more a continuation of near-boiling point tensions, where neither Beijing nor Manila wants the dispute to spill over into outright conflict,” said Jeremy Chan, a senior analyst at Eurasia Group. But Tuesday’s incident, he added, is “increasing the risk for both China and the Philippines that there could be some kind of aerial collision between the two countries.”
Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte attends a legislative inquiry into her office's use of public funds at the House of Representatives, in Quezon City, Philippines, on Nov. 25, 2024.
Philippines’ vice president impeached
The charges aren’t yet public but Duterte has previously been accused of misappropriating public funds and threatening to kill the president, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.
She denies the allegations and says they are politically motivated. The legislature is controlled by a Marcos ally who is positioning himself to run for president after Marcos’ term ends in 2028.
The background: It’s a clash between the country’s two most powerful political families. Duterte’s father is former President Rodrigo Duterte, a rough-spoken China-friendly populist who held power from 2016 until 2022. Marcos Jr. is the son of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who was deposed in a 1986 popular revolution.
In the 2022 elections, the two scions joined forces. They won handily but soon fell out over key issues, especially foreign policy: Duterte wants to maintain her father’s pro-China reorientation. Marcos Jr., wary of Beijing’s designs on Philippine territorial waters, wants to roll those policies back and follow a more traditional pro-US line.
What’s next: The Senate will schedule an impeachment trial. If found guilty, Duterte would be barred from office, upending politics ahead of this spring’s midterm elections and the 2028 presidential vote in which she’s an early frontrunner.
Why it matters: Political upheaval now looms in a key regional player on the frontlines of the US-China rivalry.U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin poses with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr during a courtesy call at the Malacanang Palace in Manila, Philippines, November 18, 2024.
Philippines locks in enhanced defense deal with US to deter China
Manila’s top defense official Gilberto Teodorosigned a treaty with the US on Monday that will allow the Philippines to access more closely-held military intelligence and purchase more advanced technology to defend itself from China. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the agreement was meant to display Washington’s commitment, saying, “We are more than allies. We are family.”
Unlike some other US allies, Manila feels quite confident that its relationship with Washington will stay strong under incoming President Donald Trump. Trump and Filipino President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. spoke over the phone on Tuesday about strengthening the alliance, which Marcos said was “very productive.”
Trump is pledging a hawkish approach to China, and the Philippines is eager to upgrade its own defenses given ongoing conflicts over the South China Sea. The strong alignment on shared interests and Marcos’praise for Trump’s “robust leadership” seem promising, as long as he can make the case to Trump that the US is coming out ahead in the transaction.
How is China preparing for Trump? President Xi Jinping attempted to set boundaries in the relationship at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru over the weekend. He drew “four red lines” for Trump to avoid: undermining the Communist Party, pushing China toward democracy, stifling China’s economic rise, and encouraging Taiwanese independence.
“These are the most important guardrails and safety nets for China-US relations,” he said. But with Trump promising punitive tariffs up to 60% on Chinese goods, and appointing China hardliners like Marco Rubio and Mike Waltz, confrontation looks likely.
A Philippine coast guard vessel and a Chinese coast guard vessel sail next to each other during an incident where the Philippines and China accused each other of ramming vessels and performing dangerous manoeuvres, at a location given as the South China Sea, in this screen grab obtained obtained from a handout video released August 19, 2024.
China and the Philippines play a dangerous game of bumper boats
On Sunday, Filipino and Chinese vessels collided for the second time in a week at the Sabina Shoal, a disputed area of the South China Sea. This latest clash occurred less than a month after Manila and Beijing signed a deal meant to avoid confrontation and escalation risk around the South Thomas Shoal. Chinese forces also fired flares at an airplane from Manila’s fisheries regulation agency on Saturday, and a Chinese fighter jet buzzed the same plane on Aug. 19.
Why the flare-up? The proximate cause seems to be Manila’s deployment of a coast guard ship to the waters around Sabina Shoal, an uninhabitable reef well within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone. But Beijing still claims “indisputable” sovereignty there and may be worried about Manila attempting to set up some sort of semi-permanent base, as it did on the South Thomas Shoal by beaching an old ship on the rocks in 1999.
Beijing and Manila both recognize the risks of testing each other’s boundaries — and Washington has been clear it will back its longstanding ally if called upon to protect it from China. Even so, Eurasia Group’s Jeremy Chan says the likelihood of the invocation of the US-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty “is quite low, as the actions by the China coast guard vessels do not rise to the level of a ‘direct attack’ on a Philippine vessel and no injuries have been reported by either side.” It also means Beijing is “steering clear of the red lines established by Philippine President Marcos, and Manila has little interest in escalating tensions in the near term,” Chan adds.FILE PHOTO: Philippine Marines fold a Philippine national flag during a flag retreat at the BRP Sierra Madre, a marooned transport ship in the disputed Second Thomas Shoal, part of the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, March 29, 2014.
Philippines successfully conducts resupply through disputed sea under new deal
On Saturday, Filipino vessels carried food and supplies to the Second Thomas Shoal, a disputed atoll in the South China Sea that has been the source of severely strained relations with Beijing in recent months. Manila deliberately beached a ship called the Sierra Madre on the Second Thomas Shoal in 1997 to effectively control it and now must regularly resupply Marines based there.
The mission represents an early success for the recently signed deal between China and the Philippines intended to cool temperatures in the region and preserve the status quo through better coordination and communication.
Manila and Beijing’s coastguards reportedly communicated about the mission in advance, and Chinese ships did not shadow or intercept the Filipinos as in past attempted resupply missions.
While details about the deal have not been made public, both sides passed the first test with flying colors. Confrontations between Manila and Beijing had been posing a serious risk of escalation – and such encounters could spiral quickly given the longstanding mutual defense treaty between the US and the Philippines.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken applauded the peaceful coordination and said the US “[expects] to see that it continues going forward.”A Philippine flag flutters from BRP Sierra Madre, a dilapidated Philippine Navy ship that has been aground since 1999 and became a Philippine military detachment on the disputed Second Thomas Shoal, part of the Spratly Islands, in the South China Sea March 29, 2014.
China and Philippines sign South China Sea deal
Manila announced Sunday it had reached a “provisional agreement” with Beijing aimed at establishing an arrangement in the South China Sea that both sides can live with — without renouncing territorial claims. The text of the deal has not yet been released.
The agreement builds off last week’s announcement of the establishment of presidential hotlines and signals a desire for de-escalation by both countries – following a serious clash on June 17. But the key word in this agreement is “provisional” as both Beijing and Manila are already showing irreconcilable differences in their positions.
China had previously told Manila it could not bring construction materials to the wreck of the Sierra Madre, a decrepit hulk deliberately beached on the South Thomas Shoal by Manila to give it de facto control. Without repairs, the ship will likely break apart soon. But Beijing claims Manila agreed to give China advanced notice and allowed inspections of shipments sent to the marines it keeps stationed there carrying food and supplies. A senior Filipino official told the Associated Press that the final deal did not require the Philippines to pre-notify the Chinese of shipments.
What to watch? A deal to cool temperatures in the South China Sea would be welcome news for all parties, including the US. “The next big test,” says Eurasia Group senior China analyst Jeremy Chan, “will be how both Manila and Beijing behave on future resupply missions, and whether either side can cede any ground.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr review the honour guard during a welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China January 4, 2023
Can a hotline prevent war in South China Sea?
I know when that hotline bling, that can only mean one thing: Beijing and Manila are beefing over uninhabitable rocks again. China and the Philippines have reportedly set up a bilateral hotline meant to help them avoid a deadly incident in the disputed South China Sea.
The effort to improve communications follows a particularly violentconfrontation on June 17, when Chinese sailors surrounded and boarded Filipino vessels wielding bladed weapons. One Filipino sailor lost his finger, and the fear is that should someone lose their life, Manila could activate its mutual defense treaty with the United States.
The Biden administration has struck a nuanced position, assuring Manila that it would honor the treaty fully while also attempting to signal to China that they aren’t handing out carte blanche to the Philippines. Eurasia Group’s Jeremy Chan says proactive communication after the June 17 incident has helped lower the temperature.
“Beijing interpreted the June 28 call between Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell and China's Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu in particular as a clear signal that Washington does not support Manila in pushing its territorial claims too aggressively,” he said.
Being able to quickly pick up the phone and talk through future incidents is a useful pressure release valve, but longer term, the South China Sea and the shoals used to mark de facto control will remain a tension point. We are watching how it will affect US and Chinese efforts to stabilize their own relationship.