The Philippines Has Changed The Analysis Of The Causes Of Its Foreign Policy Toward China

U.S.-Philippines alliance is an important link of USA’s Asian Pacific Alliance.Philippines has long been called by USA officials as a “strategic pillar” of USA in Asian-Pacific region.Due to special historical reasons,the Government of the Philippines has been implementing foreign policy of intimating with USA but opposing the communist.It adopted all-round confrontation policy with China during Aquino administration period and tried to enhance its alliance with USA by increasing its military presence in the South China Sea and promoting the South China Sea Arbitration.However,after Duterte comes into power,he swiftly changed the foreign policy implemented in Aquino period and tried,in a situation in which the South China Sea Arbitration already achieved certain “international effect”,to surpass this to develop Philippines’ s relations with China,and attempted to adopt a more pragmatic and balanced foreign policy.Many scholars tried to find out the reason behind sudden change of Philippines’ s foreign policy to China from perspectives of nationalism and domestic politics,but all with poor convincing power.In this paper,the author believes that to understand a country’s establishment of foreign policies and changes thereof requires analysis over the decision-making background of the foreign policy.Traditional theory of international relations always emphasizes explanation from static international framework,system and culture,etc.Herein the author tried to introduce practical theory of international relations.From the perspective of the background for foreign policy-making,the effect of historical background,international system background information,and practice background of decision maker himself on foreign policy were discussed to have some inspiration over the puzzle of the sudden change of Philippines’ s foreign policy.