‘China will never go to war with the US’
Published on: Sunday, April 02, 2023
By: Manila Bulletin
Professor Roland Simbulan (inset) said that it was only a ‘false impression’ that China would engage in a violent confrontation with the US.
MANILA: A former faculty regent of the University of the Philippines (UP) said that China will never go to war with the United States since the US has been known to be the world’s super military power.“That is why America must stop building its military bases in other countries, including the Philippines because China has no intention to engage in violent war in the future,” Professor Roland Simbulan, also the vice chairman of the Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG), said at the ‘Pandesal Forum’ in Quezon City.
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In the same forum, which was also virtually attended by another UP professor and geopolitics expert, Bobby Tuazon, both said the 20-year-old Iraq invasion by the US that resulted in the death of its president, Saddam Hussein, was ‘a real disaster.’
“Disastrous as it was because the military people and other Hussein supporters the US had overthrown have now emerged as insurgents so the country remains in chaos,” Simbulan said.
“Before the Iraq war, the Philippines had diplomatic relations with it (Iraq) but it was lost when we joined the US and the proof was the sending of troops at the height of the war which was led by then General Jovito Palparan,” he added.
He recalled that Palparan and his troops went back to the country after then pro-Hussein Iraqis held hostage a Filipino driver whom they promised to release if the Philippine troops would stop helping the US by withdrawing.
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Echoing a foreign geoanalyst, Simbulan said it was only a “false impression” that China would engage in a violent confrontation with the US.
“There is no question that China now is the emerging economic power as indicated by the presence of its market in almost all parts of the world and America is only the military power,” Simbulan said.
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He said what China was doing was protecting its growing market globally and it has never established any single military base in other countries even in its known allied nations.
“Except maybe that one at an African nation as claimed by the Americans,” Simbulan said.
He said this was unlike the US, which has now over 900 military bases in over 90 countries, including the Philippines.
The Philippine government should better abrogate its military agreements like the Mutual Defense Treaty and the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement with the US to attain genuine security and peace, he said.
“At present, the Philippines is like a sitting duck because with the presence of many US bases, and yes we have the most number of its bases as compared with other countries, we are vulnerable to any attack by the American enemies who are necessarily not our enemies,” Simbulan said.
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