Economic Privileges as Hostage: How it could Push Countries Toward China

[Darker45]

All right, so the Philippines will be stripped of its Generalized Scheme of Preferences Plus (GSP+) tariff privileges by the European Union (EU). The reason is that the EU finds the human rights situation in the country disturbing and so to make sure the country will do something about it they need to impose a harsh economic penalty.

Under the GSP+ tariff scheme, 6,200 Philippine products including fruits, textile, optical products, metals, electrical machinery, and vehicle parts are accepted duty-free. That means zero tariffs. In 2018 alone, that amounted to €1.9 billion.

However, starting on Monday, exporters will now be paying around 20% on tariffs. But the reason could simply be based on hollow grounds: what could be interpreted as gossips, false information, lobbying from the opposition, highly exaggerated reports and figures, blown-up descriptions of the situation on the ground, lop-sided and biased media reports, and so on.

In the global economic war, influential countries are trying to build up clout through partnerships. While the EU's real intention may be genuinely noble, it might lose some important points in the competition against China.

In addition to China showering so many countries with economic grants, it also has a very large domestic market the entry to which does not require certain measures on democracy, human rights, press freedom, and so on.


Sources:
1. https://rappler.com/business/european-union-lawmakers-revoke-gsp-tariff-perks-philippines?fbclid=IwAR3I6HN3QZXfGY9cUXA-J2Yf9arRhsJRUSsRehyK8HjwYW8w47l4TXuSWVo
2. https://rappler.com/nation/death-penalty-threat-tariff-perks-abante-not-costly

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[amishmanish]

If i am not wrong, all these accusations seems to have stemmed from the strong-arm actions of Rodrigo Duerte. I heard about him in international news when he had given a statement about executing drug dealers to deal with the drug menace. I think the EU and other western countries are very easily taken for a ride on the basis of certain left-leaning bodies projecting human rights abuses. The judgement should be left to the people of phillipines and their democratically elected president.

Yet, the west, particularly EU seems to always have a desire to compensate for their own historically violent past by taking this "kitten on a stove" approach to allegations of human rights violations from motivated groups like you pointed out. Though i doubt that such actions will push anyone towards China, atleast not the SEA countries facing their expnasionist policies.

Public groups within Phillipines should lobby the EU in such cases rather than making a deal with the devil that is the CCP.

[Coyster]

But the reason could simply be based on hollow grounds: what could be interpreted as gossips, false information, lobbying from the opposition, highly exaggerated reports and figures, blown-up descriptions of the situation on the ground, lop-sided and biased media reports, and so on.

I don't think so, the EU have tried to caution Rodrigo Duterte on some of his policies in the country since he came to power in 2016, but from what it looks like, Rodrigo has been defiant to the EU's concerns, even calling the union 'stupid' at one point, see the exerpts below:

Since the Duterte administration took office in 2016, EU has consistently raised concern over the deaths from government’s drugs war, and other human rights abuses thrown against the program. In 2018, President Rodrigo Duterte himself called the 27-member bloc “stupid” for criticizing his anti-crime stance.

'Rodrigo vs the EU' seems to have been brewing for some years now, in 2018, after Duterte had initially issued threats of rejecting any donations from EU, he and his administration rejected aids sent from the EU to their country.

Even before that in 2017, Duterte has repeatedly said he would reject any donations coming from the EU, a threat that was fulfilled, at one point in January 2018 when economic officials rejected P380-million in aid from the bloc.

Source: https://www.philstar.com/business/2020/09/18/2043413/philippines-sees-no-reason-eu-revoke-trade-perks

Removing Gsp+ tariff privilege at this period in time will be indeed devastating for exporters in the Philippines, while the pandemic will make the situation even worse. Rodrigo Duterte and his administration have to come to an agreement to either abide by the EU's policies on human rights/political issues or just pull out from the organization totally.

[fiulpro]

See China is trying to build an army , not comprising of soliders but actually of the indebted neighboring countries   together , in such a way that this would harm nations like India if they started a war or something.

But, when we are talking about the situation of China , yes it is not that worse but they have had rumors of two more potent virus stains of pandemic potential.

The economy of China is also hit , but not as bad as these countries,

In addition to China showering so many countries with economic grants, it also has a very large domestic market the entry to which does not require certain measures on democracy, human rights, press freedom, and so on.

 •I do believe it's extension of their scheme to earn favor of the nations to help them eventually if something happens.

I don't believe they are feeling bad about the virus Contamination which is 100% their fault for sure.

[Beerwizzard]

If i am not wrong, all these accusations seems to have stemmed from the strong-arm actions of Rodrigo Duerte. I heard about him in international news when he had given a statement about executing drug dealers to deal with the drug menace. I think the EU and other western countries are very easily taken for a ride on the basis of certain left-leaning bodies projecting human rights abuses. The judgement should be left to the people of phillipines and their democratically elected president.

I'm starting to think that we gonna have to ban all political ideology and replace politicians with managers that solve particular problems in their countries. Because right now there are too many of extremely low quality politicians that lobby their own interests for the taxpayer money and at the same time pushing EU towards the wrong way. It is like some of these politicians got their KPI, their close friends getting boost for their business, and someone else stayed silent because you won't argue with human rights. EU residents are kinda fucked in this chain.
Asia always was like another world and Rodrigo Duerte is far not the worst guy. China always had a lot of shitheads in their government and pretty often their politics turn completely crazy but when it comes about Chinese market then money makes everyone in EU fucking blind.

[bitsurfer2014]

This development  is very alarming because there could be a possibility that other trading partners of the Philippines that are allied with EU's human rights policy will also do the same like what EU have done - which could be tantamount to economic sabotage.

At this point, the Philippines will have no recourse but to strengthen trade relations with China or other possible trading partners, although they don't interfere with our local policies, I doubt they will forge more trade agreements with the Philippines without getting any concessions in return - one of which is the Philippines stance in South China Sea issue.

Either way, the Philippine's economy would be at a disadvantage in these unfair trading policies.

[Darker45]

But the reason could simply be based on hollow grounds: what could be interpreted as gossips, false information, lobbying from the opposition, highly exaggerated reports and figures, blown-up descriptions of the situation on the ground, lop-sided and biased media reports, and so on.

I don't think so, the EU have tried to caution Rodrigo Duterte on some of his policies in the country since he came to power in 2016, but from what it looks like, Rodrigo has been defiant to the EU's concerns, even calling the union 'stupid' at one point, see the exerpts below:

Since the Duterte administration took office in 2016, EU has consistently raised concern over the deaths from government’s drugs war, and other human rights abuses thrown against the program. In 2018, President Rodrigo Duterte himself called the 27-member bloc “stupid” for criticizing his anti-crime stance.

When Duterte was still campaigning for the presidency, and even when he was still a local chief executive with no dreams whatsoever of making it to national politics, he was already very transparent of his strong stance against drugs. And yet, on this very same platform and with his track record against drugs, he, the dark-horse candidate, was able to secure a landslide victory as president.

4 years within his term and with what others would call as violent and dirty drug war, he is still enjoying high approval, trust, and satisfaction ratings among his people.

Could it be that the man's defiant and very vocal attitude, often cursing and using words as rough and unstatesmanlike as stupid, son of a bitch, and so on against prominent western leaders, is the reason for being economically punished by international communities? Could it be that his strong independent policies often laced with anti-western pronouncements are really the reason why he is being so disliked among western leaders?

Are the same economic penalties meted on countries with similar, yet relatively more quiet, strong stance against illegal drugs? The neighboring Indonesia's Jokowi, for example, has even executed a number of foreign nationals in the name of the same drug war.

[hugeblack]

After the crisis that occurred due to the COVID19 virus, many countries are trying to pressure other countries to pay more money and in the end, the weaker party will bear the cost of the economic conflict.

[RealMalatesta]

Considering apple is moving to India a bit, other nations trying to find manufacturing places in India, Belgium, Bangladesh, Pakistan and many more like that will eventually start to hurt China.

China already made so much money that they could just invest that into other nations and get money that way, if you own Mercedes 20% shares in china, it is still a company run in Germany but it doesn't matter anymore because 1/5 profits goes to china now, that type of logic could still help them however in the long run I feel like more and more companies will leave, they can't do it right away but over time it will happen. When that happens the results will be felt in China over long years, it will eventually hurt them a lot once again and they will stop with human right violations.

[Febo]

Philippines and for EU on other side of the world. Only stuff that cant be acquired from elsewhere should be traded between such countries. Other stuff EU and Philippines should acquire from countries that are closer to them. This way a lot of cost the shipping and that shipping also add a lot to worlds pollution. 

[amishmanish]

If i am not wrong, all these accusations seems to have stemmed from the strong-arm actions of Rodrigo Duerte. I heard about him in international news when he had given a statement about executing drug dealers to deal with the drug menace. I think the EU and other western countries are very easily taken for a ride on the basis of certain left-leaning bodies projecting human rights abuses. The judgement should be left to the people of phillipines and their democratically elected president.

I'm starting to think that we gonna have to ban all political ideology and replace politicians with managers that solve particular problems in their countries. Because right now there are too many of extremely low quality politicians that lobby their own interests for the taxpayer money and at the same time pushing EU towards the wrong way. It is like some of these politicians got their KPI, their close friends getting boost for their business, and someone else stayed silent because you won't argue with human rights. EU residents are kinda fucked in this chain.
Asia always was like another world and Rodrigo Duerte is far not the worst guy. China always had a lot of shitheads in their government and pretty often their politics turn completely crazy but when it comes about Chinese market then money makes everyone in EU fucking blind.

Politics should continue to exist because that is the only way that differing beliefs can co-exist. The problem with the world right now is the extreme demagougery and a complete lack of any kind of bipartisan agreements between parties on the left and the right. I think the left is to blame for getting us to this point because they over spent their goodwill from all the goody-feely years of "multi-culturalism". While multi-culturalism in itself was a beautiful concept, the left sabotaged it by the targeted freebies in the name of minorities. Be it immigration, job reservations, all of this "positive-action" was overdone for consolidation of vote banks.No doubt that the residents, as you say, are fucked.

As @Darker45 too pointed out, this may have more to do with Duterte ruffling feathers amongst EU politicians by his "I don't owe you shit" attitude. It would be interesting to know the actual impression that Filipinos have about the human rights impact of Duterte's personal drug war. If there have been reports of abuse, are they actually documented or this is just because EU politicians don't want an end to the lucrative drug market?? West is the biggest consumer of drugs and its own drug war has always been an irony.

[abhiseshakana]

This is a continuation of the EU resolution condemning alleged human rights violations by the Duterte administration. Due to the absence of significant progress and ignorance of EU criticism of the lawless killings carried out by the Philippine government authorities under Duterte. The EU assessed that the government and legal authorities in the Philippines could not punish Duterte, so the resolution was passed in the hope that the international community would pay attention to human rights issues in the country.

What the European Union has done is similar to what has been done by the United States Government in 25 countries, the majority of which are recipients of Chinese OBOR assistance, including China. USTR has designated 25 countries as developed countries and not developing countries so that they do not get preferential tariffs from the US for import duties on goods they export to America. The EU's relationship with Duterte has been heating up since 2016 when Duterte carried out a massacre under the pretext, the war on drugs, the EU criticism has been met with scorn by Duterte.

[Haunebu]

In addition to China showering so many countries with economic grants, it also has a very large domestic market the entry to which does not require certain measures on democracy, human rights, press freedom, and so on.

Lol. This is easily one of the silliest statements that I have read recently. China and freedom don't usually mix well together op and almost everyone knows this. Their policies aren't as radical as North Korea, but they still impose restrictions to a large extent.

These restrictions are the reason why they haven't fully developed yet. Currently, thanks to the entire Corona origin fiasco, more and more countries are steering clear of China.

Even though EU policies might hurt certain countries as you mentioned, this doesn't automatically mean that they will shift away from them to other nations.

[Vishnu.Reang]

Honestly I am getting tired of this drama. Philippines is an independent country and the EU can't dictate their policies. And it is so hypocritical to blame Philippines when many of the EU nations are supplying weapons to the worst human rights violator in the world (Saudi Arabia). If they want to criticize Philippines, then they should criticize the human rights violations in Saudi Arabia as well.

[Lucius]

I do not see this move as something created exclusively in the minds of EU politicians, but at least for me and more than obvious pressure on the Philippines to change one of the very controversial decisions for their American friends. I have already written a post about this in a topic about the Philippines, but it is about the U.S.-Philippines Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) which is currently suspended and if it stays that way it will prevent the US military from being present in the area that is very important to them.

Let no one be deceived that the USA has not had much influence over the EU since the end of World War II - and that influence is still very great. Although some may classify something like this as conspiracy theories, the political background of such decisions is generally much more complex than the fact that the EU decided something because it has some benefits from it.

[el kaka22]

I believe this is literally the reverse of what is going on and China is not getting more customers, it is literally the opposite. The fact that countries realized that they "need" China or they would bankrupt made them realize that they need two things; One is have another place in the world like China, if they are all alone in making stuff and there is no proper competition in the world, it would hurt all nations but china, we need another place like it and India emerges as the big candidate so far, secondly they also need to make sure that they have some local stuff as well, the more stuff you make in your own nation and sell to other nations the more money you make, obviously you are not going to be China, but you could move some of it to your own nation and make 3x of the profit that way by selling to other nations.

[hatshepsut93]

But the reason could simply be based on hollow grounds: what could be interpreted as gossips, false information, lobbying from the opposition, highly exaggerated reports and figures, blown-up descriptions of the situation on the ground, lop-sided and biased media reports, and so on.

Do you really think that EU, which is already pretty slow to take any action, would do anything if they weren't sure that it's 100% true? If they indeed had some motive to crush Philippines economy for some really strange reason, because what would they gain, then they would have acted much more harshly and much more sooner. This all just sounds like a conspiracy theory to whitewash Duterte's crimes, which is really lame, because Duterte himself isn't really hiding that he wants anyone related to drug use to get killed.

[Kemarit]

{.. snip ..}

Removing Gsp+ tariff privilege at this period in time will be indeed devastating for exporters in the Philippines, while the pandemic will make the situation even worse. Rodrigo Duterte and his administration have to come to an agreement to either abide by the EU's policies on human rights/political issues or just pull out from the organization totally.

Duterte has been abiding, but I don't think that he should be pressured this way, this is already economic sanctions in paper, and EU and US are only imposing it rouge nations, so Philippines is not consider to be an enemy of EU?

And why would they forced another sovereign nation to follow their rules? I think there's more to it, perhaps they just want Duterte to be ousted and some Filipinos outside of the country are conniving to get him out of the government. Just look at how they shutdown those oligarchs in the country, like this

(https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/10/world/asia/philippines-congress-media-duterte-abs-cbn.html).

So "war on drugs" and now "freedom of speech" crackdowns. Someone needs to do something about the Duterte adminstration, whether it is a country, group of individuals, specially outside the Philippines. But the thing is that he still has the support of the Filipinos and with this move, they drove off the Philippines to look for countries like it's neighbouring China.

[Darker45]

In addition to China showering so many countries with economic grants, it also has a very large domestic market the entry to which does not require certain measures on democracy, human rights, press freedom, and so on.

Lol. This is easily one of the silliest statements that I have read recently. China and freedom don't usually mix well together op and almost everyone knows this. Their policies aren't as radical as North Korea, but they still impose restrictions to a large extent.

So where is the silly statement there? I'm not sure you got the quoted statement right but we're probably saying the same thing.

Even though EU policies might hurt certain countries as you mentioned, this doesn't automatically mean that they will shift away from them to other nations.

No, of course, not. But if there is an available option where high tariffs are not imposed and where standards are not so stringent and wide as to include press freedom, human rights, and so on, they might probably leave EU.

But the reason could simply be based on hollow grounds: what could be interpreted as gossips, false information, lobbying from the opposition, highly exaggerated reports and figures, blown-up descriptions of the situation on the ground, lop-sided and biased media reports, and so on.

Do you really think that EU, which is already pretty slow to take any action, would do anything if they weren't sure that it's 100% true? If they indeed had some motive to crush Philippines economy for some really strange reason, because what would they gain, then they would have acted much more harshly and much more sooner. This all just sounds like a conspiracy theory to whitewash Duterte's crimes, which is really lame, because Duterte himself isn't really hiding that he wants anyone related to drug use to get killed.

I believe the intention was never to crush the Philippine economy. They won't gain anything from it. But with that very harsh economic imposition is a very strong statement probably saying, "Shut your effin dirty mouth up and toe the line. You know we can make it economically harder for you!"

I don't understand the issue of the EU with killing drug criminals. The Philippines doesn't even have a death penalty. And even the same tariff perks are being held hostage against the country possibly imposing death sentence to drug criminals. I mean, isn't it something that should be left to the sovereign country to decide?

[bryant.coleman]

Do you really think that EU, which is already pretty slow to take any action, would do anything if they weren't sure that it's 100% true? If they indeed had some motive to crush Philippines economy for some really strange reason, because what would they gain, then they would have acted much more harshly and much more sooner. This all just sounds like a conspiracy theory to whitewash Duterte's crimes, which is really lame, because Duterte himself isn't really hiding that he wants anyone related to drug use to get killed.

I still believe that Duterte's war on drugs was a success. Thousands became collateral casualty, but the death rates from overdose and drug-related violence. Some of the drug lords were killed and some others were forced to flee towards "friendly" countries. Soft approach towards crime seldom works in third-world nations. The "iron-hand" approach is needed, just like what Duterte is doing.