[ The Geopolitics ] The Philippines’ Maoist Guerillas Vow to Resist ‘Imperialist China’
…although the network holds deep historical and ideological affinities with Chinese Maoism, they now view contemporary China as a capitalist and imperialist power that is actively violating Philippine sovereignty using a variety of coercive economic and military means, thus making the Chinese state an adversary to be resisted.
The recent 100th anniversary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) marked a moment of strategic reflection for the Maoists of the Philippines. Through its official media organ, the CPP published a searing historical analysis titled On the Centennial of the Once Great Communist Party of China. The piece traces the CPC’s move away from its ideologically pure revolutionary origins to its corrupt embrace of capitalism and its ultimate evolution into an expansionist imperial power.
The author identifies two distinct periods in the CPC’s 100-year history: from the party’s inception in 1921 to 1976 and from 1976 to the present. After 1976, it is argued, the CPC was “completely transformed and dominated by the state capitalists and their private capitalist collaborators” and thus “abandoned the international proletarian cause.”
The piece was soon followed with a review of Xi Jinping’s centenary speech written by the Chief Information Officer of the CPP, Marco L. Valbuena, in which he claims the Communist Party of China is “bereft of a Marxist soul” and proceeds to accuse Xi Jinping of presiding over an “imperialist China” and of promoting “modern revisionist ideas.”
According to Valbuena, the CPC’s ideological “degeneration” and its accordant change in domestic behavior has also had far-reaching implications abroad, with the Philippines being on the receiving end of Chinese aggression. “Arising from the development of monopoly capitalism,” he writes, “China has now become a big imperialist bully, contrary to Xi Jinping’s claims.”
The Communist Party of the Philippines is growing quite hawkish on China, and the Chinese imperialism that spokesman Valbuena writes about is a subject of intensifying focus in contemporary CPP media discourse. This hostile anti-China sentiment has prompted explicit calls for attacks against Chinese firms operating on Philippine soil.
Valbuena told Benar News that Chinese businesses and their onsite security personnel are legitimate targets. In another statement, the CPP directed its armed cadres to “mount more frequent tactical offensives” against government forces and Chinese commercial interests using “all possible types of weapons – from rifles and command-detonated explosives, to spears and punji sticks.”
Although the CPP are avowed communist internationalists, they are hardliners when it comes to matters of national sovereignty. This impulse animates their desire to expel American and Chinese influence from Philippine soil. Accordingly, they often issue scathing critiques of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, a former college student of CPP founder Jose Maria Sison, for being weak on China and thus failing to adequately address Chinese maritime transgressions.
The Communist Party of the Philippines is openly hostile toward China’s government, its military forces, and Chinese businesses operating in the country. Yet the degree to which the CPP’s animosity and threatening rhetoric will translate into New People’s Army operations against Chinese nationals and interests remains to be seen.