President Rodrigo R. Duterte should abandon his friendly stance toward China because the tide has turned, political analysts said at the weekend. “We miss the point if we just try to look at Duterte’s tortured language and contradictory statement,” said Richard H. Heydarian, a professorial chairholder on geopolitics at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines. “The Philippines does not have a coherent foreign policy when it comes to dealing with China,” he said by telephone. “It’s interesting to see why Duterte is so tortured in terms of his language; it’s precisely because he realizes that the tide is turning against his China policy.”

Villegas, V. M. M., & Atienza, K. A. T. (2021, May 3). Abandon friendly China stance, Duterte told. BusinessWorld, p. S1/12.