Few leaders are as ludicrous as President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines. The ultimate tough-but-not-actually-tough bully, Duterte picks on unarmed drug users and innocent journalists. When it comes to dealing with Beijing, however, Duterte is the perfect happy pet for Xi Jinping.

The degree of weakness Duterte offers Communist China is truly something to behold. Indeed, it is so extraordinary it is almost unbelievable. Consider Duterte’s recent ban on the activities of the Philippines Navy. Faced with Xi’s imperial seizure of the near entirety of the South China Sea, Duterte hasn’t exactly doubled down on defending his national interests. China is attempting to steal waters, including the Spratly Islands area, which falls under Manilla’s sovereign clams. But just how much does Duterte care? In the face of a Chinese threat which is equivalent to that of Imperial Japan in the 1930s, the president has acquiesced, or issued the mildest possible protests against Beijing’s activity. Even then, the purpose of Duterte’s “protests” seems designed to placate independent voters who care about their country far more than as a response to Xi’s actual thievery.

But in a display of truly pathetic submission earlier this month, Duterte turned his Navy into a de-facto beach patrol. I’m not exaggerating. Duterte ordered his navy to avoid patrol activities outside of the 12-mile sovereign waters of the Philippines. This is absurdity incarnate. To limit a navy to such a small area is no different from telling medical surgeons that they will operate on patients with nothing other than their hands. No tools, no imaging devices, no medicines. It’s the equivalent of telling a Formula One driver that they must start a race with only a liter of fuel. In short, it is not mentally rational.

But it’s not surprising. Because we are talking about Rodrigo Duterte.

This is someone who once memorably proclaimed that he wanted to visit Russia in order to tell President Vladimir Putin that “there are three of us against the world: China, Philippines, and Russia.” That quote bears note for its essence of Duterte’s mind.

After all, friendship with Vladimir Putin is only possible if the individual seeking said friendship is willing to be an obedient servant. Evidently that’s what Duterte offers in his great power relationships.

But what does it say of a Philippines president who seeks friendship with a nation that is actually trying to steal his territory? What does it say about a leader who finds common cause with those who would turn his great nation into a feudal outpost?

I would suggest that it says this leader is either an idiot or a Chinese agent. Or both.

Duterte’s record towards Xi certainly proves that he is no nationalist for the people he has sworn to serve. This is not a man who fits with what we might expect from a 21st-century leader of a key democracy. And it bears contrasting Duterte here with the other showman and wannabe strongman that defines the democracies of the Indo-Pacific. Donald Trump.

For all President Trump’s oddities and preferences for putting himself before the interests of others, Trump at least recognizes and is willing to respond to threats from American adversaries. The Trump administration’s response to Xi’s imperialism, for example, has been instrumental in unifying democracies and Vietnam in common cause against a threat which affects all the nations of the Indo-Pacific rim. The Obama administration may have been correct to advance the trade deal of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, but it was decidedly wrong to show hesitancy in face of Xi’s militarizing of the South China Sea. That appeasement was only fuel for Xi’s ambition.

What is happening now, with more regular naval patrols by many nations through the South China Sea, and promises of more patrols to come, is a critical advancement. It offers hope that the international liberal order that has made the Pacific Ocean rim and all the world more prosperous and secure, will be preserved. That Xi won’t win.

Just don’t count on Rodrigo Duterte to participate in this struggle for his and other nations’ interests. President Duterte likes to proclaim himself the ultimate nationalist for a grand Filipino future. But in the end, he’s just a clown. Not very smart, obviously unstable, and quite happy to make himself a supplicant poodle for his nation’s greatest adversary.

As President Trump would say, “Sad!”

(Tom Rogan, Washington Examiner foreign policy writer)

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