At GRIPS Forum on December 9, 2024, Ms. Marites Da?guilan Vitug, Editor at Large, Rappler, Chair Emeritus, Journalism for Nation Building Foundation gave a lecture titled “Love and Geopolitics: Rodrigo Duterte's China Embrace.”

Abstract:
Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's pivot to China from 2016 to 2022 was influenced by personal and pragmatic factors. Despite Duterte’s love for China, compromising the country’s sovereign rights over the West Philippine Sea, Beijing did not fulfill many of its promised loans for infrastructure projects and continued to harass Philippine Navy and Coast Guard personnel. Beijing also tried to influence the military, political parties, media and the public. Our book, Unrequited Love: Duterte’s China Embrace, looks at the impact of the policy shift on the rule of law and the country’s maritime dispute with China, the pushback by key government institutions and the change under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ?

* This lecture was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 24K00236.

Speaker: Ms. Marites Da?guilan Vitug
Editor at Large, Rappler
Chair Emeritus, Journalism for Nation Building Foundation



Speakers’ Profile:
Marites Vitug is one of the Philippines’ most accomplished journalists, winning awards and public recognition for her reportage on justice, politics, security and foreign policy. A bestselling author, she has written several books on Philippine current affairs, including Rock Solid: How the Philippines Won its Maritime Case Against China and Unrequited Love: Duterte’s China Embrace (with Camille Elemia). She is currently editor-at-large of Rappler.
Marites has a diploma in world politics from the London School of Economics. She was a visiting scholar at the University of Kyoto and GRIPS.

What is GRIPS Forum?
Since its establishment in 1997, the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) has promoted research and education on a wide variety of policy issues. The GRIPS Forum invites specialists from national and local governments as well as academic and business communities to promote policy studies and expand policy networks.

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