RUTHFULLY YOURS

Last week I wrote about the shortening odds of a war in Asia over China’s rapacious land claims. China is threatening war with Japan over Japanese-controlled islands that it claims, and is threatening war with Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and every major seafaring power over its claim to control the shipping lanes through the South China Sea.

Under President Obama, the U.S. has launched several freedom-of-navigation voyages and fly-overs of China-claimed territory to indicate our disregard of the Chinese position. But those saber rattles have been half-hearted: After a U.S. Navy vessel sailed past a Chinese artificial island, a Defense Department official told the U.S. Naval Institute that the voyage had been conducted under the principle of “innocent passage”: that a ship can sail through another country’s territorial waters so long as its intentions are non-belligerent. Of course, this concedes China’s control — and makes it look like the Obama administration is interested only in appearing tough to America, not to Beijing.

The Philippines have been less sanguine. They took China’s claim of sovereignty in the South China Sea to the Permanent Court of Arbitration, in The Hague, and won, though China refuses to recognize the result. (Why should they? The Hague is a laughingstock.) More substantially, the Philippines have grounded a naval ship on a reef in the Spratly Island chain, in the South China Sea, and keep a permanent detachment of marines there. The physical Filipino presence is meant to dispute the Chinese position. The Chinese coast guard has blockaded the ship to prevent food and water from being delivered, and now the marines are resupplied by helicopter.

To this extent, the Philippines — a nation protecting its own claims — serves as our proxy in the South China Sea. But it’s not just a marriage of convenience: The Filipinos are our genuine, hard-and-fast friends. Pew Research regularly polls world opinion of the United States; as of last year, the U.S. had an approval rating in the 80s in just seven countries: Senegal, Ethiopia, Kenya, Ghana, South Korea, Israel, and Italy. There’s only one country where we break 90 percent approval: the Philippines, where 92 percent of Filipinos have a favorable opinion of the U.S. That’s 9 points higher than Americans’ approval of America. Statistically, the Philippines is the most pro-American country in the world.

The Philippines recently elected a new president, Rodrigo Duterte. He was elected thanks to the popularity of the ruthless anti-drug war he led as mayor of the Philippines’ fourth largest city, Davao. As mayor, he opened drug-rehabilitation centers, offered pensions to recovering addicts, and called for private citizens to murder drug dealers. He has continued the policy as president, openly advocating vigilantism.

President Obama was in Asia this week for the G20 and ASEAN summits; he visited the People’s Republic of China and the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Laos). Both are guilty of grotesque crimes against humanity. Laos has been accused of genocide against its Hmong ethnic minority. Were the Falun Gong an ethnic group, China would certainly be guilty of genocide against them, and arguably against Tibetans too.

In Laos, Obama bemoaned America’s support for the anti-Communists during the Laotian civil war. During that war, Laotian Communists slaughtered 20,000 Hmong civilians. After the war, they vowed to murder the families of every anti-Communist, “to the last root.” But in Laos this week, Obama reminded Laotians that during the civil war, “villages and entire valleys were obliterated” by American bombs, and that “countless civilians were killed.”

According to several press reports, while he was in China, Obama privately reaffirmed to Chinese dictator Xi Jinping that he recognizes China’s right to control Tibet.

So it’s fair to say that, during his Asian trip, human rights didn’t weigh too heavily on President Obama’s mind. But he did express concern over the vigilante murders of drug dealers in the Philippines, promising to bring them up to President Duterte.

Why did Obama feel compelled to single out the Philippines, and their new, popular president, for what is — relative to genocide — a minor crime?

God only knows. The Philippines’ brusque president responded by calling Obama a son of a bitch; Obama responded to that by cancelling their meeting. Reportedly, they had an abrupt, informal meeting at the ASEAN summit, where they both were. Nothing more. Once again, Obama has soured our relationship with a crucial ally at a crucial time. In 2008, Senator Obama vowed that, as president in the wake of George W. Bush, “rebuilding our alliances” would be his goal. One wonders if this is what he had in mind.

— Josh Gelernter writes weekly for NRO and is a regular contributor to The Weekly Standard. He is a founder of the tech startup Dittach.