By Adolfo Quizon Paglinawan

 

Part 35: Where the Philippines seeks War, China sees Diplomacy

Mary Kay Carlson has been recalled to Washington DC. She will be out by January 30.

“Recall to home office” is a diplomatic term for consultation but when made permanent becomes tantamount from being separated from the post.

The Daily Mail of UK said President Donald Trump has recalled nearly 30 career diplomats from ambassadorial and other senior embassy posts around the world, informing them that they have to be out of their jobs by mid-January.

All of them were assigned to their posts by the Biden administration but had remained in their jobs for the first year of Trump’s second term despite an initial wave of cuts that targeted mainly political appointees.

Bilyonaryo.com quotes Carlson’s pre-departure statement “It has been the honor of a lifetime to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines — we have loved every minute of our three and a half years here! Thank you for the role you have played in making this assignment so rewarding and meaningful.”

According to the Washington Post, she expressed “with a sad heart” that she had received a phone call from DC saying “that I will need to leave in January” in a holiday greeting sent to friends and colleagues. The letter, however, made clear that Carlson remained in the dark about whether her recall notice would allow her time to adjust.

“I hope to stay a few weeks longer to help make the transition as smooth as possible and must begin to make departure plans,” she wrote.

The American Foreign Service Association representing foreign service officers said it was working to confirm which members were recalled after some reported being notified by phone with no explanation – a process its spokesperson called “highly irregular”.

‘”Abrupt, unexplained recalls reflect the same pattern of institutional sabotage and politicization our survey data shows, are already harming morale, effectiveness, and U.S. credibility abroad,” spokesperson Nikki Gamer said in an email.

As of this writing, the State Department declined to respond to Gamer’s comments

Lackluster performance

Serving for three-and-half years, she has been criticized as a functionary who was not doing enough to promote peace and stability in the region.

First, Carlson failed in defining for the Philippine what President Joe Biden’s “iron-clad” commitments  really means. The general perception she leaves is that it is only iron when comes to US ambitions in Asia-Pacific, but clay when it comes to Filipino national interests.

Second, she direly lacked the statecraft of her former predecessors like William Sullivan who did not serve as a mere order-taker from Secretary of State Henry Kissinger but the latter’s partner in triangulating a US-China-Philippine relations faced with the more compelling challenges of the Cold War between the late 60s and early 70s.

Third, the outgoing ambassador was a partisan for the United States’ unilateral rules-based order over and above the policies of the multilateral United Nations and generally-accepted norms on true international law.

She helped in the disinformation drive that distorted the UN Convention of the Laws of the Sea applications in the South China Seas and faked a Philippine “victory” narrative from the 2016 Arbitral Award, which in international law, applied only to the Philippines and did not create any jurisprudence whatsoever.

As a result of which, fourth, she revealed herself as an ignoramus when it comes to history, especially China and its surrounding countries. Her condemnations of what she claims as “Chinese aggression” merely echoes the propaganda spawned by a retired US Air Force Colonel Raymond Powell who has led US Naval Institute’s adjuncts on “failed transparency initiatives”, and empty claims by a Philippine Coast Guard commodore Jay Tarriela, who served as an untutored self-proclaimed prophet for a mythical West Philippine Sea. The world public, outside of US western alliances, know that China has no “colonial” intentions and is merely protecting their side in the disputed territories.

Fifth, she became a relic of the declining role of US as the only superpower, whose “might is right” shibboleths espoused by America’s deep-state has led to insecure wars competing for dominance instead of cooperation, and a partisan of Barack Obama’s pivot to the Indo-Pacific and his ill-fated Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Subsequently, instead of engaging in development diplomacy, she became the enforcer of Biden’s meddling together with Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin into Philippines internal affairs, taking advantage of our weak and gullible president towards the embargo of the Bilateral Consultative Mechanisms which President Rodrigo Duterte and China’s Xi Jinping put in place to usher the rapid post-pandemic recovery of our economy through grants, trade and investments, tourism and aggressive infrastructure development backed up by China’s opening commitment of $23 billion for the Marcos administration.

Sixth, Philippine lawmaker Rufus Rodriguez, criticized her lack of representation for the immigration problems of Filipinos in the US especially in the light of Trump’s hostile attitude towards immigrants in general. The congressman also called her attention to “unfair treatment” of U.S. State travel advisories on  the Philippines, suggesting that the ambassador should be summoned by competent domestic authorities to explain.

Seventh, she failed to mobilize to a visible degree the role of the US presence in EDCA bases, in the field of human assistance and disaster response. She remained phlegmatic in this respect, confining initiatives to only relief which only averaged one million dollars. Consequently, she missed a golden opportunity in an area where the ordinary Filipino, especially those affected by typhoons, earthquakes and other natural disasters, could relate to her and the country she represents.

Lastly, in her own home country, she has not been spared from political partisanship to which, she will return labeled as a “Biden and woke pawn” despite the fact she is a career foreign service officer who has served under both Republican and Democratic administrations.

Returning envoys

Those who have been affected are not losing their foreign service jobs but will be returning to Washington for other assignments should they wish to take them. The post they are leaving will be managed ad-interim by a charge-de affaires.

But appointing a new ambassador requires a presidential nomination and Senate confirmation, which could take months. With diplomacy in many countries running through strict protocols, not having an ambassador in place could make it more difficult for senior US officials to set up meetings with their foreign counterparts or sensitive messages from Washington. 

In the case of Carlsson, however, President Trump has nominated to the US Senate as her replacement, Lee Lipton, the Interim Permanent Representative to the US Mission to the Organization of American States, as early as last October 8.

Lipton is deemed fully supportive of Trump’s ‘America First’ priorities.

A senior State Department official said “An ambassador is a personal representative of the president and it is the president’s right to ensure that he has individuals in these countries who advance the ‘America First’ agenda.”

The Trump administration’s directive now leaves the United States without leadership in all countries where Washington is trying to sustain peace efforts that the president has championed.

An observation states  that it is the latest in the Trump administration’s efforts to concentrate high-stakes diplomacy in the hands of a small group of special envoys comprising longtime friends including his son-in-law Jared Kushner and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, who are now working on the Russia-Ukraine peace talks and post-war plans for Gaza.

Gift to China, Russia or peace?

Congressman Bill Keating, a Democrat from Massachusetts, urged Secretary of State Marco Rubio “to reverse course” calling it a “serious insult to the countries affected and a huge gift to China.” This administration should be expanding international engagement, not politicizing the Foreign Service, he added.

His remarks were echoed by Jeanne Shaheen, the ranking Democrat on the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, telling Politico, “President Trump is giving away U.S. leadership to China and Russia by removing qualified career Ambassadors who serve faithfully no matter who’s in power. This makes America less safe, less strong and less prosperous.”

But Secretary of State Marco Rubio downplayed the findings at a news conference, “Foreign Service officers are more empowered at the regional bureau than they have ever been. We are changing this place so that it is our missions in the field that are not just driving directives from the top down but also ideas from the bottom up. And I’m very proud of that, and I think that’s going to lead and pay huge dividends for future secretaries of state long after I’m gone.”

Definitely these foreign policy movements have been vetted mainly against Biden residuals that are occupying strategic foreign assignments. But if we are to weave this with Trump’s national security strategy with what The Diplomat saysreflects a more coherent strategic vision where the animating philosophy is unambiguous – “National resources exist to serve America and American interests alone.”

While the document places pronounced emphasis on Western Hemisphere stability articulating on the Monroe Doctrine., the administration signals its willingness to deploy decidedly coercive policies in pursuit of immigration enforcement objectives, while by contrast, the posture remains conspicuously restrained toward other regions of the world,  

For instance, the strategy acknowledges the importance of a peaceful, open Indo-Pacific and freedom to navigation, yet under the banner of flexible realism, it forswears any ambition to transform other nations’ political systems, privileging above all else favorable commercial relations.

The Diplomat continues, “Absent is any fatalistic hostility toward Beijing.”

On China, Secretary of War Peter Hegseth, in a preemptive speech, made clear that deterrence, not confrontation, remains the objective. He articulated an explicit desire for a stable, peaceful relationship with China grounded in fair trade and mutual respect, and expressed interest in establishing military communication channels. Throughout, he emphasized that China-U.S. relations should operate on the principles of balance of power and free commerce.

However, while the Strategy paper acknowledged Taiwan’s significance, Hegseth’s speech stated with specificity that U.S. policy on Taiwan remains unchanged.

Conclusion

The Diplomat sees the confidence of many nations placed in alignment with American strategic objectives has begun to erode substantially. The trend toward greater autonomy, already visible in Europe, will only accelerate.

The update makes no mention of many allies, the Philippines among them. Hegseth’s speech , remarkably, omits even Japan.

The current-affairs magazine for the Asia-Pacific marks the twilight of an era in which a world shaped by and with the United States held sway everywhere. We are entering a new epoch, one in which the world without America gradually expands.

But whether omissions were intended for face-saving or space where tactics can rule over principles, what is important for now is on the Philippine stage is Carlson is out, and one voice of the American deep state has been silenced.

I sincerely hope the Philippines finds it way back to neutrality and independent foreign policy where the best interests of the Filipino is held sovereign over any vested and foreign influence.

“In necessariis, unitas; in opinabilibus, libertas; in omnibus, caritas!”

To be continued.

   

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