1 Introduction

To meet global infrastructure needs, major powers such as the United States of America (USA), Japan, India, and the European Union (EU) have launched extensive infrastructure and connectivity programs over the last decade following China’s lead. Ten years after its introduction, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) remains one of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s signature projects. In September and October 2013, Xi introduced in speeches in Kazakhstan and Jakarta the land-based Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (MSR) to offer funding and cooperation in developing infrastructure and connectivity in East, South, Southeast and Central Asia, Europe, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Oceania, and even the Polar region. Initially labeled One Belt, One Road (OBOR), the project was eventually termed the BRI; it is also known as the New Silk Road(s). It is considered one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects ever conceived. The State Council of China has emphasized that the BRI is designed to promote “policy coordination, facilities connectivity, unimpeded trade, financial integration and people-to-people bonds” [1]. Improving relations on the civil society level is considered a crucial dimension of the BRI; it is both a means and aim of the initiative [2]. The main objective, however, is to improve infrastructure and connectivity in the participating countries and regions. Both infrastructure and connectivity are broadly defined, ranging from basic infrastructure such as roads, railways, and ports to energy, health, and the digital sector. China regularly emphasizes that the BRI is based on market principles, inclusive and open to all countries and to international and regional organizations for engagement. Similar to the other infrastructure schemes, the BRI is therefore not an altruistic foreign aid program. Rather, it has a geo-economic and geopolitical logic.

Neither the slowdown or cancellation of many BRI projects around the globe during the COVID-19 pandemic nor the increasingly critical coverage of in particular international media undermined the fundamental appeal of the globally largest infrastructure and connectivity scheme in many countries in the Global South. Argentina, Malawi, Nicaragua, and Syria formally joined the initiative in 2022 and Afghanistan in 2023. However, governments in the West and also some in the Global South are increasingly critical about opaque or secret terms of many BRI projects, the lending conditions, and sometimes the negative social and environmental impacts. In December 2023, Italy announced that it will not renew its Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on BRI cooperation with China, while Argentina’s new president Javier Milei announced to align closer with the USA and other Western countries [3]. The long-term economic effects of certain projects have also been questioned by experts. Moreover, critics have doubted the geo-economic and geostrategic motives of this scheme from the very start of the BRI [4].

At the Third Belt and Road Forum in Beijing in October 2023, Xi aimed to give new impetus to his initiative. However, fewer heads of state and governments took part in the forum than in the two previous meetings in 2017 and 2019. China, though, responded to the increasingly negative perceptions in politics and academia by adjusting the BRI scheme. Most BRI projects are now smaller and also take more account of environmental concerns than in previous years [5]. This trend, however, is partly a logical development, since many major basic infrastructure projects have either been completed, such as the Boten-Vientiane railway between China and Laos, or are in their final stage of implementation.

Between 2013 and 2018, all ten members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) signed with China a MOU on the BRI, but not ASEAN as an institution. The Association sees itself in an intermediary role, aiming to better interlink the existing different infrastructure and connectivity initiatives, namely its own Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity 2025 (MPAC 2025) and those of the USA, Japan, India, the EU, and the G7. The Southeast Asian governments are aware of potential benefits of the BRI but also of risks posed by it, as well as closer economic collaboration with China in general. To reduce the risk of becoming economically dependent on China, they seek to engage other great but also small and middle powers economically. This hedging strategy is also reflected in their political-diplomatic and security relations. Notably the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam, but also ASEAN are pursuing omnidirectional relations in a very pragmatic and flexible manner, refusing to sideline either with China or the USA [6].

Despite their economic balancing effort, the economic relations with China grew in the last decade significantly deeper than with other nations. However, while Beijing is the main trade partner of all Southeast Asian nations, it is in most cases not their main foreign investor. The USA, the EU, and Japan usually invest more than China – despite the BRI. From 2010 until 2021, China invested USD 110 billion only, while both the USA (USD 243 billion) and the EU (USD 222 billion) invested double than the former in Southeast Asia [7]. This also shows that not all investments pledged by Beijing under the BRI frame were carried out.

The USA, Japan, India, and the EU, though, do not only openly criticize China’s BRI. Instead, they initiated in the recent past alternative infrastructure and connectivity schemes for the Global South, be it Japan’s Partnership for Quality Infrastructure or the EU’s Global Gateway Initiative (GGI). What they all share in common is the focus on so-called high-quality infrastructure and the emphasis on high standards for good governance and transparency. The G7’s Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment which was promoted by USA President Joe Biden is designed to mobilize further capital for national initiatives and contribute to better coordination. In the same vein, the GGI must be seen in light of the EU’s attempt to pursue a de-risking approach from China in order to strengthen its economic security [8].

In today’s interconnected world, geo-economics and geopolitics are inseparable. The recipient countries of infrastructure and connectivity schemes are thus drawn into major power rivalries. However, the different financing systems also offer them more opportunities to obtain loans and grants from the various donor countries, which in certain cases can play them off against each other. The Philippines is an example of this behavior.

Similar to Malaysia and Vietnam, the unresolved territorial dispute with China in the South China Sea is a defining strategic factor in the Philippines’ relations with Beijing. Despite the continuing tussles created by territorial disputes and the “little maritime accidents” in the South China Sea in the recent past [9], the Philippine government of Rodrigo Roa Duterte (2016–2022) remained committed to the BRI, and so did initially his successor Ferdinand Bongbong Marcos Jr. (BBM) who took office in June 2022. Adapting a so-called independent foreign policy which included a more critical stance toward the long-term ally Washington, the Duterte administration tried to normalize the Philippine relations with China, including talks on the South China Sea dispute, and tapped Chinese loans and Official Development Assistance (ODA)—in total, USD 276 million in 2021, his last full year in office—to support Duterte’s ambitious ‘Build! Build! Build!’ (BBB) infrastructure program as one of his priority projects. In line with independent assessments, Duterte has acknowledged the infrastructure backlogs in the country and concentrated his administration’s efforts to push numerous infrastructure projects to encourage investments and promote economic growth in the archipelago. To bankroll the projects, his administration has tapped several external sources of funds, including from China. Despite Duterte’s willingness to cooperate with China under the BRI frame, it was only in November 2018 during Xi Jinping’s state visit to the Philippines that Manila and Beijing signed a MOU on their BRI collaboration.

However, the BRI and BBB tandem did not always settle well with several sectors of Philippine society. There were projects that the Filipino elites and the general public consider to be environmentally damaging, potentially job-displacing, and geopolitically questionable. Accordingly, the current BBM administration vowed to continue only the “good” projects initiated by his immediate predecessor. One of the many plans BBM broached during his campaign rallies was to pursue the long-planned bridges that would link the islands of Iloilo, Guimaras, and Negros. This project was already proposed in 2017 during the administration of President Duterte [10]. In the implementation of this and other projects, various opinions surfaced ranging from good to bad to beautiful. With the return of the Marcoses to Malacañang, the implementation of current projects, especially the hard infrastructures, remind many Filipinos of Former First Lady Imelda Marcos’ tagline “The Good, the True, and the Beautiful” on the physical and cultural developments in the 1970s. Famously, she added: “We have to reject what’s ugly” [11].

Applying an eclectic approach based on International Relations and Political Science, this article analyzes the Philippines’ infrastructure cooperation with China and, albeit to a lesser extent, the EU. Drawn from the answers of 1,409 Philippine respondents in a Sinophone Borderlands project survey, polls from the Philippine Social Weather Stations (SWS), and the annual expert poll conducted by ISEAS—Yusof Ishak Institute in 2023 and 2024 with about 100 Philippine respondents [12, 13], and the analysis of primary and secondary sources, this article examines closely the perception of the Filipinos in the implementation of the BRI projects and by extension to China as an economic and military power, including its behavior in the South China Sea. In particular, this article looks at the opinion of Filipinos on the positive implications of the BRI projects, the perceived bad repercussions to environment, employment and economy, and lastly the beautiful effects of the projects and programs to the overall development of the Philippines. Surveys are important to get empirically valid insights into the political views and preferences of the citizens. In analyzing the perceptions of ordinary Filipinos on China and in particular on specific BRI projects, this study fills a crucial empirical void. A noticeable limitation of this article, though, is that there are no specific surveys on the Filipinos’ perceptions of the EU’s GGI. Thus, it was not possible to conduct a direct empirical comparison of the views of the Philippine citizens of the two infrastructure schemes. However, the intriguing findings on the perception of the Filipino public of the BRI and the reactions of the BBM administration to it will serve to draw lessons for Manila's cooperation with Brussels in the infrastructure sector.

The analysis is based on three assumptions: Firstly, economic security is playing an increasingly important role for national security as a whole. Thus, infrastructure collaboration with other nations has not only covered a domestic but also a strategic dimension—both from the perspective of the project initiator and the recipient. Second, the views of both elites and the general public influence the foreign policy decision-making process matter. Ideally, the perceptions and opinions of the public and experts overlap, but when they diverge, decision-makers must reconcile them or explain why they favor a particular view. Third, public opinion is generally not the key variable in foreign policy decision-making [14, 15]. A critical exception, however, is a society’s consensus views on fundamental foreign policy decisions, including choices of alignment or neutrality, and friend–foe perceptions. With regard to these views, no government can politically afford to deviate too far from the sentiments of the majority of its citizens. In the case of this study, the critical perception of China by the Filipino public is an important factor that no Philippine president can ignore. The first hypothesis of this study is that the majority of Filipino citizens also view the BRI projects in a negative light, because they have negative attitudes towards China. Building on this hypothesis, the second hypothesis states that due to the inversive positive views of the Philippine government and citizens on the EU, the GGI can become an interesting alternative for infrastructure and connectivity projects for the Philippines.

In the following, the article provides a detailed assessment of the Filipinos’ perceptions of the BRI and specific projects, distinguishing between the in their view good, bad, and beautiful aspects. Subsequently, it analyzes whether the BBM administration has changed the Philippines’ infrastructure cooperation with China and the EU. In this context, the GGI will be explained more in detail. Finally, the conclusion will be drawn.

2 Research method

The survey in the Philippines was commissioned by the EU-funded project Sinophone Borderlands—Interaction at the Edges, conducted at Palacky University Olomouc (Czech Republic) [16]. 1409 respondents answered the comprehensive questionnaire in the last months of Duterte’s term, specifically between April and June 2022. In addition to the Philippines, similar online surveys in 14 other Indo-Pacific countries were conducted between April and September 2022. The survey is representative regarding gender, age, and region for each country. This large-scale survey thus offers an excellent base for comparisons between countries in Southeast and South Asia as well as Oceania.

Regarding the Philippine sample, the survey’s results were processed and analyzed by the authors using the IBM Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Table 1 illustrates that 53.4 percent of the respondents are females while 46.3 percent are males. A dismal 0.3 percent of the respondents do not want to answer the question. According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, the ratio of males to females was 50.6 to 49.4 percent in 2020 [17]. In terms of age, Table 2 shows that 41.37 percent of the respondents aged from 18 to 29 years old, 25.83 percent are 30–39 years old, 19.51 percent are 40–49 while 13.27 percent are aged 50 and above. This distribution reflects the fact that the Philippines is a very young society; the average age is about 24 years.

Table 1 Gender
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Table 2 Age
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Table 3, on the other hand, describes the level of educational attainment. 72.9 percent are college graduates or are currently pursuing their tertiary education, 26.7 percent are in high school, and 0.4 percent have elementary qualifications.

Table 3 Highest educational attainment
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Figure 1, on the other hand, illustrates the areas of residence of the following respondents. 16.7 percent are from CALABARZON, 14.3 percent are from the National Capital Region (NCR), 13.4 percent from Central Luzon, 9 percent from Central Visayas, 7.6 percent from Western Visayas, 5.6 percent from Davao Region, 4.9 percent from Bicol region, 4.8 percent from Ilocos Region, 4.3 percent from northern Mindanao. The rest are from SOCCSKSARGEN, Eastern Visayas, Caraga, Zamboanga, MIMAROPA, Cagayan Valley, Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR), and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

Fig. 1
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Number Respondents Per Region. Figure created with paintmaps.com by the authors

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Lastly, Table 4 demonstrates the rural–urban residency of the respondents. 44.5 percent are living in the city, 26.3 percent are dwelling in the town, 17.2 percent are residing in the village while 12 percent are dwelling in the big city.

Table 4 Type of residency
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3 The Philippine perception of China

The economic and infrastructural development in the Philippines especially with the implementation of the BRI in various provinces of the country is undoubtedly affected by varied and to some extent negative perceptions of the Filipinos regarding China. In general, however, the Philippine perception of China is rather positive: a slight majority has very positive or positive views. This surprising result is in line with previous surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center between 2015 and 2018. In Southeast Asia, Vietnamese have a much more critical perception of China, while the views of China in the other countries polled by the Sinophone Borderlands project, namely Singapore and Malaysia, are slightly more favorable than in the Philippines [18].

In the Sinophone Borderlands survey, however, additional questions were asked, so that the friendly attitude towards China at first glance looks less positive at second glance. The respondents were asked about their views on various topics regarding China. These include the current state and behavior of China for the last three years (2020–2022), and the implication of its rise as major and military power. Furthermore, the respondents were also consulted regarding their opinion on China’s influence on the democracy of other countries. They were also asked on which side they will take between China and the USA, if forced to choose. In addition, the respondents were consulted also on their views on whether the Philippines should stand firm in dealing with China. All these views, in one way or the other, may represent the general view of the public and consequently influence the Filipinos’ view on all activities related to China.

To begin with, one could start examining the sentiment of the Filipinos by looking at the representative responses of respondents duly summarized in Fig. 2. In terms of the view on China, the perception of 46.84 percent (660) of the respondents has worsened in the last three years, while 44.14 percent (622) said their views have improved. For a country that has several sovereignty related issues with China, a 2.7 percent difference is not really bad. In the range from 1–7, level 5 has the highest respondents of 357 that their perception of China got better while level 3 with 302 respondents saw their view on China worsening. To put the Filipinos' perception of China into perspective: While about 57 percent have positive feelings toward the PRC, the USA and the EU have values above 75 percent (USA: 1161, EU: 1061) [19].

Fig. 2
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Views on China for the last 3 years. Figure created by authors

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Such a view is reflected in the succeeding responses where respondents are asked if China is a threat. Out of 1,409 respondents, the highest number of responses from the seven choices goes to those who are perceived as neutral with 24.55 percent. These responses are demonstrated in Table 5. Those who agree that China is a threat to the Philippines constitute around 60.39 percent of the combined figures [somewhat agree (325), agree (282) and strongly agree (244)]. Those who said that China is not a threat have a combined percentage of 15.04 percent who strongly disagree (44), disagree (80), and somewhat disagree (88).

Table 5 China as threat
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The 60 percent respondents could have linked the idea of threat to the rise of China as a major power and its increasing military capabilities. Figure 3 shows that the Filipinos are colder to the idea of China’s rise as a major power. 45.20 percent of the respondents demonstrated their negative feelings and while 41.94 percent have a warmer reception to the global status of China as a major power.

Fig. 3
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China's rise as major power. Figure created by authors

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A crucial finding of the survey is that when asked to decide and choose between USA and China to align with, only 16.25 percent of Filipinos favor China, while 77.14 percent prefer to ally with the USA (see Fig. 4). This result as shown in Fig. 5 has taken a different level compared to the previous figures with less than five percent difference only. This time the difference is significant: almost 61 percent in favor of the USA. It should be noted that the result basically remains the same with the survey done by the Social Weather Stations in 2020 and 2021. It showed that while the Filipino trust in China sank to bad, it remained good for the traditional ally USA [20]. The survey is fully in line with the findings of the ISEAS expert poll: In 2023, 78.8 percent of the Filipino experts preferred the USA as ally, only 21.2 percent China. In 2022, the figures were even more in favor of Washington, namely 83.5 percent and 16.5 percent, respectively [21]. Only 4 percent believe that Manila’s relations with Beijing will significantly improve in the next three years, while 38.4 percent answered they will remain the same, 24.2 percent say they will worsen, and 9.1 percent worsen significantly [22].

Fig. 4
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Alignment between USA and China. Figure created by authors

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Fig. 5
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Belt and road initiative. Figure created by authors

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Because of these perceptions and reservations, the respondents believed that the Philippines should take a firm stand in dealings with China even if it comes with economic costs, including BRI projects. In Table 6, the Filipino respondents—69.91 percent (985)—strongly stated that the Philippines should stand firm in its foreign policy dealings with China. 20.87 percent are neutral, while 9.23 percent (130) disagree.

Table 6 Philippine stand firm in dealing with China
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By and large, the Filipino respondents have reservations regarding the activities implemented and related to China. Despite such fear and reservations, the BRI projects and programs were until late 2023 business as usual even at times when transnational links were threatened.

4 The good: positive implications of the BRI

As mentioned earlier, the BRI has been employed by China to actively engage with its immediate and extended neighbors. According to China’s—contested—narrative, the BRI is based on win–win cooperation between China and each BRI partner country—most projects are conducted on a bilateral basis—, thus both parties benefit from the collaboration [23]. In certain areas, the majority of Filipinos indeed see benefit from the cooperation with China. The following responses demonstrate the opinion of the Filipinos on the BRI, Chinese technology, and 5G mobile technology.

Figure 5 shows that 65.43 percent affirmatively support the BRI while 34.56 percent remain cold to the initiative. It is important to point out that the Filipinos saw the concrete results of the conflux of Chinese infrastructure and connectivity projects and Duterte’s BBB programs as undeniably manifested in several gargantuan infrastructural projects and physical facelifts of metropolitan cities and provinces in the archipelago during Duterte’s term. No wonder, the response of many respondents is almost twice of the naysayers.

In terms of the impression of Chinese technology which includes the quality of products made in China and the technologies used in the BRI projects, respondents have high regards on the technologies distributed in the Philippines and employed in the BRI projects with 70.12 percent. Those who said otherwise comprise 29.87 percent (see Fig. 6).

Fig. 6
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Chinese technology. Figure created by authors

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Corollary to the discussion above, Table 7 shows that 63.73 percent of the respondents agree to the China–Philippine partnership in terms of 5G mobile telecommunication infrastructure. 18.66 percent registered their disagreement, while 17.6 percent were neutral. It should be noted that Huawei and ZTE Corporation are major providers of 5G network services in the Philippines and other Southeast Asian countries. In addition to private Chinese tech companies, state-owned companies are key stakeholders in implementing the Digital Silk Road in Southeast Asia. An example is China Energy which became in May 2021 a signatory to the Philippines Common Cell Tower Contract to build 1000 cell towers in the country [24].

Table 7 China–Philippine 5G mobile telecommunication infrastructure
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5 The bad: consequences to environment, employment, and economy

Notwithstanding the “good” aspects of China’s BRI, the infrastructure scheme has also gained many critics in the Philippines. Chief among the reasons for the negative feelings toward the BRI are the sometimes-poor-quality infrastructure built by Chinese contractors, the frequent dominance of Chinese workers in the projects, and comparatively high interest rates of loans provided by Chinese banks, etc. Moreover, many Filipinos still remember the contested Chinese investments in the telecommunication and railway sector during the presidency of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (2001–2010) [25]. Another major factor is the general distrust of Philippine politicians and the broad public of China—“the looming shadow of suspicion on Chinese geopolitical ambitions in the region using BRI as a vehicle” [26].

The existing literature on the BRI in the Philippines and their findings are validated by the results of the 2022 survey. Figure 7, for instance, has shown the Filipinos’ concern on the impact of China’s BRI on the global natural environment. 220 respondents, the highest, believed that China’s BRI and other activities have detrimental effects to the world environment. This number contributes to the 52.51 percent who have negative feelings regarding China’s activities with regards to the preservation of the environment. 47.48 percent, on the other hand, are optimistic that China’s programs and projects will do otherwise. A good example is the New Centennial Water Source–Kaliwa Dam Project. The objective of this signature project is to supply about 18 million citizens (3.5 million households) in Metro Manila, Rizal, and Quezon provinces with about 600 million liters of water per day. However, various non-governmental organizations (NGOs) oppose Kaliwa, fearing environmental degradation and the displacement of indigenous peoples in the National Park, Wildlife Sanctuary, and Game Preserve [27]. The project is built by a Chinese contractor, China Energy Engineering Corporation Ltd., and mainly financed by a loan from the Chinese Exim Bank (USD 280 million). The Philippine Commission on Audit observed in 2019 that the bidding procedure looked rigged in favor of the Chinese company. NGOs were also critical about the dispute settlement mechanisms which allegedly favored the Chinese side [28].

Fig. 7
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China’s impact on the global natural environment. Figure created by authors

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In terms of employment, the Filipinos are anxious about the possible job displacement of many workers since the implementation of the BBB program of the previous administration. When asked if the presence of Chinese workers will deprive Filipinos of work in the BBB projects, the respondents affirmatively said yes. 68.28 percent believed that the BRI projects and other activities which employed Chinese workers including Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGO) will deprive a good number of Filipinos who are currently jobless because of the pandemic. 26.40 percent, on the other hand, have confidence that the Chinese presence will not deny the Filipinos of their much needed employment opportunities. Five percent of the respondents are neutral (see Fig. 8).

Fig. 8
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Chinese workers deprive Filipino workers. Figure created by authors

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Concerning the politically sensitive issue of dependency, 66.67 percent of the respondents as shown in Fig. 9 believed that the Chinese projects, specifically the BRI, will increase the Philippines’ dependency on China. 28.95 percent, on one hand, said otherwise while 4.67 percent were neutral. This finding is significant—and shared by many respondents in the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute expert poll of 2023 [29]—and potentially good news for BBM administration, as it supports its will to deepen the economic relations with other countries to safeguard the Philppines’ economic security through lessening the potential economic dependency on China.

Fig. 9
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Chinese projects increase Philippine dependency on China. Figure created by authors

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6 The beautiful: benefits to Philippine development

The previous sections discussed the good and the bad of the BRI as perceived by the Filipinos. This time, the discussion will touch on the “beautiful” phase of the engagements. Despite the perceived threat posed by China, Filipino respondents believed that China remains an important player in the development of the Philippine economy. In Table 8, 70.47 percent (993) of the respondents acknowledged the significant role of China while 13.91 percent (196) said it was not important while 15.61 (220) percent represented the neutral ones.

Table 8 China in the development of Philippine economy
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Following this argument, the Filipinos are surprisingly optimistic that the China–Philippine infrastructure development partnership will be beneficial for the Philippines in the next ten years. As illustrated in Fig. 10, those who said that the development partnership will be advantageous for the country constitute 74.52 percent while those who said otherwise comprise the 19.37 percent. It should be noted that 6.10 percent of the respondents are neutral.

Fig. 10
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Benefits of infrastructure development partnership to the Philippines. Figure created by authors

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7 The Marcos Presidency and the BRI: in search of alternatives

Ferdinand Marcos Jr. came to power as president on 30 June 2022. He received 58 percent of the votes in May 2022, an unusually large majority in the Philippines where the president usually receives only a relative majority of the votes. Initially, it was believed that the independent foreign policy implemented by his predecessor will be continued by his administration. This, as Sara Duterte, Rodrigo Duterte’s daughter, became Vice-President. In fact, during the election period, BBM categorically stated that his foreign policy stance was pro-Filipino, i.e., always in the interest of the Filipinos and the country, and should not be seen as either pro-USA or pro-China [30].

In his State of the Nation Address on July 25, 2022, BBM declared that the backbone of an economy is its infrastructure. Accordingly, he said that the infrastructure program of the Duterte administration must not only continue but, whenever possible, be expanded. In fact, Marcos’ BBM program—adopted from his nickname—is an enlarged version of Duterte’s BBB. Among the major transportation infrastructure projects that he aims to implement are the North–South Commuter Railway (costing P75.1 billion), the Metro Manila Subway Project (P26.3 billion), and the Light Rail Transit (LRT) Line 1 Cavite Extension Project (P2.7 billion). Moreover, part of Marcos’ BBM program are more specific infrastructure initiatives, including the Network Development Program (P140.4 billion), the Asset Preservation Program (P88.5 billion), and the Bridge Program (P38 billion) [31].

Due to the high costs of these projects, the BBM administration badly needs external financial support, including from BRI sources. However, in July 2022, Manila pulled out of an infrastructure funding deal with China worth almost USD 5 billion after China failed to “act on the funding requests” which was negotiated by the Duterte administration. This agreement would have seen Chinese construction firms build the Subic-Clark Railway project, the Philippine Nationals South Long-Haul Project, and the Davao-Digos segment of the Mindanao Railway Project [32].

Manila and Beijing, though, managed to overcome other problems related to joint BRI projects, paving the way for BBM’s state visit in Beijing and his meeting with Xi Jinping in January 2023. The two presidents signed 14 agreements, ranging from infrastructure and energy to agriculture and tourism to maritime security. The Chinese pledges amount to USD 22.8 billion in investments (of which are USD 13.8 for renewable energies, USD 7.3 billion for electrical vehicles and mineral processing, and USD 1.7 billion for agricultural products) and almost USD 2.1 billion in trade purchase intentions. There were even discussions about restarting talks on joint resource exploration in the South China Sea [33]. The bilateral MOU on the BRI of 2018 was updated with a focus on bilateral short-term and long-term cooperation in infrastructure projects [34]. In close cooperation with China, the Philippines have agreed to carry out high-quality projects under the synergy of the BRI and the BBM infrastructure program.

At first sight, BBM secured a highly positive outcome from his meeting with Xi in January 2023. In 2023, the two presidents met two more times: at the occasions of the Third Belt and Road Forum in Beijing and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco. However, Duterte had secured similar pledges from China, USD 24 billion in 2016 alone, yet not all promised projects were realized. The same applies for the generous pledges made by Japan.

With the recent cancellation of working visas and deportation of overstayed POGO workers in the country, the fear of more Chinese talents that might displace locals in the country has been allayed. Given the projected turnaround of the economy after the COVID-19, the BRI supported projects in the country will provide relief to the worsening traffic conditions especially in the NCR. At the same time, the provision of better roads, bridges, and skyways among others will enhance connectivity and mobility of people and goods within the country. Consequently, such facilities will attract more inbound foreign tourists, encourage domestic guests to conduct their revenge tourism activities, and draw potential investors in the archipelago. Despite the current political and diplomatic tussles between China and the Philippines and the generally critical attitude towards China, the economic relations will inevitably blossom in the years to come. The reasons for this are the underlying dynamic of the bilateral economic relations: They are already very close, and China will remain an economic powerhouse and regional hub in the next decades which makes a decoupling strategy virtually impossible. However, the Philippines is keen to minimize the risk of an economic dependency on China.

Moreover, the Philippine–Chinese economic relations cannot be fully separated from the political relations in which the security dimension and the close Philippine–USA ties play a key role. Only a few weeks after his meeting with Xi in Beijing, the impression became stronger that strategically “Marcos Jr. Steers Manila toward Washington and Tokyo” [35]. An illustration of the deepening of the bilateral relations is that BBM has met with Joe Biden in the White House twice since taking office, among them a trilateral meeting with Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in April 2024.

A major driving force for revitalizing the traditionally close partnership with the USA are China’s actions in the South China Sea. The BBM government condemns China’s behavior much more clearly than Duterte. The tensions with China increased significantly in autumn 2023. The Chinese coast guard aimed to block Philippine resupply missions for the “BRP Sierra Madre”, a Philippine navy vessel ran aground in Second Thomas Shoal (Ayungin Shoal) in 1999. About a dozen Philippine soldiers are stationed on the rusting ship. While the Philippines succeeded a few times in providing food and water to the soldiers, China also blocked some of these attempts [36]. However, this provocative act is not a response to the more USA-friendly policies of Marcos Jr. Already during the Duterte presidency, China dispatched a flotilla of more than 200 fishing vessels to Whitsun Reef (Julian Felipe Reef). This move raised a huge controversy in the Philippines and brought Manila and Washington closer together [37].

The heightened tensions were a major factor for Manila’s cancellation of three signature infrastructure projects of Duterte under the BRI frame, namely two railway projects in Luzon and one in Mindanao. Their total value amounts to USD 4.9 billion. Another reason for this move was that, according to the Philippine government, China’s unwillingness to further fund these projects. The Transport Secretary announced that the Philippines is instead “seeking alternative ‘better’ deals from traditional investment partners like Japan, South Korea, the US and the European Union” [38].

These partners are viewed very positively in the Philippines. The ISEAS expert survey of 2024 shows that the opinion of the USA improved from 78.8 to 83.3 percent among the Filipino elites due to China's assertiveness in the South China Sea. The EU (39.1 percent) even overtook Japan (35.8 percent) as the preferred third party to hedge against the uncertainties of the strategic rivalry between China and the USA. Highlighted by the respondents were Brussel’s stance on environment, human rights, and climate change, its vast economic resources and willingness to provide global leadership, and its promotion of international law. This positive perception needs to be viewed in the context that the accumulated data for the ASEAN-10 shows that the level of trust towards Brussels decreased from 51 to 41.5 percent [39].

In fact, BBM engaged deeper with the EU. Even though the EU lacks hard power, its unique combination of economic, diplomatic, and normative influence makes the EU an attractive partner for Manila. Conversely, due to geostrategic and geo-economic reasoning the EU is highly interested in strengthening the partnership with the Philippines and other Indo-Pacific nations [40]. After taking office in 2019, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen branded her cabinet as a “geopolitical Commission”. The EU is indeed a global economic player, based on the high economic performance of its members and Brussels’ normative and regulative power. However, in contrast to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the EU is not a military alliance. Moreover, the Commission’s geo-strategic ambitions are severely undermined by the consensus principle in the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). Like ASEAN, a single member state can veto any joint foreign policy decision or statement.

In the economic realm, the EU’s new focus on de-risking from China to protect its economic security makes it mandatory for Brussels to cooperate more closely with traditional and new partners. Notably countries in the geographic proximity of China offer interesting alternatives as production bases and trade partners. A key aim of the EU is to lessen dependencies on China in regard to certain resources, mostly raw earth minerals, and technology and diversify its investments more broadly. Another objective is the promotion of cooperation with the Global South in economics, trade, and infrastructure and connectivity, including green transition and digitalization. The main instrument for this approach is the GGI. Building on the Europe-Asia Connectivity Initiative of 2018, the GGI has a budget of €300 billion (2021–2027). However, this does not involve new funds, but rather the consolidation of existing EU financing programs.

Overall, the GGI is not least an ambitious approach to strengthen the supply chains through investments in infrastructure and connectivity in the Global South, in particular in Africa and the Indo-Pacific. Similar to the other infrastructure schemes, the geostrategic and geo-economic strategic objective is to counter China’s larger BRI and benefit from the collaboration with the countries in the Global South [41].

Whereas the EU’s contribution to the Philippines’ security will remain limited, as neither the EU nor individual member states have the capacity to become security providers in the Indo-Pacific, the potential of the EU-Philippine infrastructure and economic cooperation in general is significant. The Philippine-EU cooperation builds on the EU-Philippines Partnership and Cooperation Agreement signed already under the Duterte administration in January 2018. In general, however, Manila’s relations with Brussels were strained due to the EU’s strong criticism on the human rights violations in the Philippines, in particular the war on drugs. During the visit of Ursula von der Leyen in the Philippines in July 2023—the first of a President of the European Commission—, the EU and Manila agreed on the Team Europe Initiative on Green Economy under the GGI. Both presidents stressed the complementarity of this initiative with the Philippines’ national programs. The EU and selected member countries (Austria, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden) will provide €466 million in funds to support the Philippines’ environmental and digital transition in the next few years. As part of this initiative, the EU and Manila agreed in October 2023 on a €60 million grant of the EU. In addition to strengthening the circular economy and improving energy efficiency, key aims are to reduce waste and plastic usage and ensure water supply in the Philippines [42]. The advantage of the EU’s Team Europe approach is that it offers targeted cooperation in areas where European governments and companies are highly experienced and competent, thus the partner countries can significantly benefit both from funding and know-how transfer. The projects are smaller than average BRI projects, but therefore also easier to plan, implement, and manage, increasing their long-term sustainability.

A successful Philippine-EU cooperation under the BBM and GGI frames would yield important strategic and public relations benefits for Brussels in Southeast Asia. It would help to silence criticism of the GGI, as “Southeast Asian elites see the initiative in its current form as either too little or too unsubstantiated to be taken seriously” [43]. Moreover, even though the positive views of the EU in general are a good starting point for closer collaboration, essential for a successful and sustainable infrastructure cooperation is the extent of the locals’ appreciation of how “good” and “beautiful” the GGI projects are, i.e., that they directly serve their interests and needs.

Such a positive reception in the Philippines would be important, because, like China, the EU does not want to restrict the cooperation with the Philippines to infrastructure and connectivity: Von der Leyen aims to conclude a free trade agreement with Manila. Moreover, there is a mutual interest of the Philippines, the EU and its member states such as France and Germany to deepen their defense and security collaboration. To counter China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea, the Philippines is especially interested in expanding its maritime cooperation [44]. In September 2023, the very first subcommittee meeting on maritime cooperation between the EU and Philippines took place in Brussels.

Training, capacity-building, and joint naval maneuvers are as welcome as diplomatic support from Europe for the 2016 award of the Permanent Court of Arbitration. In the recent past, the EU emphasized in various meetings with Philippine officials that the award is legally binding and valid [45]. While the EU, together with Japan, is Manila’s preferred third partner, the Philippines already seems to have become the EU’s new best friend in the Indo-Pacific.

8 Conclusion

The Philippines remains in dire need of foreign loans and investments to upgrade their infrastructure. Former President Duterte made pragmatic use of Chinese—and Japanese—funding to advance the Philippines’ economic interests and in particular his BBB program. While some joint infrastructure projects were successfully implemented and recognized by the citizens, others were criticized—and later even suspended by Marcos Jr. Moreover, China failed to take steps to resolve the territorial dispute in the South China Sea with the Duterte administration. It did not offer Duterte concessions for his in-principle China-friendly policies, including potential compromises in the territorial dispute and in regard to revenue sharing in the South China Sea. Consequently, from 2020 onwards Duterte started to cooperate more closely with the USA in security matters and referred publicly to the 2016 award. This step can be seen as a sign that national security also took precedence over economic security for Duterte, even though he remained committed to modernizing the Philippines’ infrastructure.

Still sticking to the traditional hedging strategy, the current BBM administration intensified the partnership with the USA, but also Japan, Australia, India, and the EU even more. Its approach is more in line with the foreign and security policy of former president Benigno Aquino III rather than of Duterte.

While China and Japan were the main infrastructure development partners in the Duterte era, the EU may in the next years become a stronger cooperation partner for the BBM administration. However, China will remain an indispensable economic and infrastructure partner for the Philippines, which is reflected in the BBM administration’s approval of new infrastructure projects with Beijing, while at the same time some BRI projects have been canceled.

The findings of this contribution built strongly on a representative survey conducted in the Philippines in 2022. A major finding of this study is that the perceptions of the Philippine citizens and elites of China are strongly in line with each other. Another one is how well the Filipinos are able to highlight the “good”, “bad”, and “beautiful” effects of infrastructure projects. The survey results show that, by and large, the improvement of the infrastructure in the country, courtesy of China’s BRI but also other external funding sources, is no longer confined only in Metro Manila but is also felt by people in northern Luzon, Visayan Islands, and Mindanao. This is best manifested by the results of the survey in which the good, bad, and beautiful developments brought by BRI are clearly seen and felt by many people all over the archipelago. Noteworthy is that the business sector, in particular ethnic Chinese businesspeople, have a more favorable view than the broad public [44].

The first hypothesis—that the majority of Filipinos view the BRI projects in a negative light, because they are in general critical of Beijing—was falsified. Even though the Filipino elites and the majority of the citizens view China very skeptically, they do not reject BRI-related cooperation with China. Instead, the citizens are able to assess whether a specific project yields tangible effects or not. The survey data demonstrate that the Filipinos can distinguish between good, bad, and beautiful impacts of infrastructure projects on the economy, the environment, and their own wellbeing. However, due to the critical attitude towards China, there might be strategic reasons and domestic political pressure that the BBM administration will not approve BRI projects in the realm of critical and sensitive infrastructure to safeguard the Philippines economic security.

Such a move would offer an opportunity for the EU’s GGI. However, even though the EU is seen in a very positive light by the Philippine elites and citizens, Brussels cannot simply rest on its laurels. The demonstrated ability of the Filipinos to clearly distinguish between positive and negative effects of infrastructure projects means that GGI projects must bring tangible benefits to the Filipinos. Only then can the GGI become an intriguing additional infrastructure offer for the Philippines. The scale of most GGI projects, though, is too small to be a real alternative to China’s BRI. The second hypothesis could therefore not be fully confirmed.

However, it cannot be ruled out that strategic considerations will become more important when it comes to choosing the main partners for infrastructure development. Because both the Philippine political and economic elites and the broad public are cautious in their choices between promoting economic and infrastructure cooperation and taking precautions against negative implications of China’s foreign policy, in particular its behavior in the South China Sea.

This article has shown that cooperation between the Philippines and its partners China and the EU in the area of infrastructure and connectivity is not only driven by the economic and infrastructural needs of the Philippines, but also by strategic and economic security considerations of the three actors. As the case of the Philippines under Duterte and BBM demonstrates, recipient countries of infrastructure schemes are fully aware of this strategic dimension and that global infrastructure competition is in most cases fought out at the domestic level of the partner counties. Accordingly, the Philippines aims to utilize this fact to further the own economic interests. Overall, the majority of Filipinos seem to support the pragmatic approach of the BBM administration regarding infrastructure cooperation with China and the EU. Despite their foreign policy preferences, Filipinos do not see infrastructure cooperation with China and the EU exclusively in black and white, but are able to differentiate between “good”, “bad”, and “beautiful” projects.