Brady

We really hope Ambassador Sonia Brady is well and fit to discharge her duties in Beijing.

Brady suffered a stroke that required confinement in a hospital. From the last reports, it appears she remains confined. Our Foreign Secretary travelled to Beijing to check on the ambassador’s condition.

Ambassador Brady was pulled in from retirement to head our embassy at the Chinese capital. Considering her distinguished record, and the long absence of an ambassador to such a crucial and sensitive post, the Commission on Appointments promptly confirmed her designation.

Brady is, by far, our most knowledgeable diplomat on China. She served our embassy there for many years. She is familiar with the workings of the Chinese government. She has extensive contacts at that post.

It is a wonder she was tapped to the post only very late in the game. For too long, the administration insisted on appointing a person with the barest of knowledge about diplomacy and about our complex relationship with what is probably the most important country in our future.

For too long, we did not have an ambassador in Beijing. During this time, our relations with China turned from extremely warm to unusually cold. The Luneta hostage incident happened and we did not have a senior diplomat in Beijing to sort things out. Several high-profile Chinese-assisted projects were held up or terminated. Then the Scarborough incident happened, bringing our bilateral relations to its lowest point.

The long absence of a Philippine ambassador to Beijing understandably baffled China. All the tarrying about designating an ambassador to the Chinese capital was, understandably, interpreted badly on the other end. It did seem the new administration was not giving our bilateral relationship the importance it should have.

While Manila tarried too long in getting an ambassador to Beijing, and the Commission on Appointments could not bring itself to confirm the initial administration nominee who appeared less than fit for the post, the Chinese leadership began sending very serious signals. Ambassador Liu, the previous Chinese ambassador to Manila, was a man of high bureaucratic and party rank. That signaled the importance Beijing accorded our bilateral relations.

Liu was replaced by a diplomat of lower stature and even lower profile. That can only be interpreted as a downgrading of our bilateral relationship in Beijing’s scheme of things.

While Ambassador Sonia Brady has sterling credentials as a professional diplomat, her designation did not seem to sufficiently placate the Chinese leadership. A career diplomat, she did not have the political access to our President that the Chinese leaders might expect, considering their inclination for backchannel diplomacy.

Nevertheless, she seems to have done good work in the few weeks she has been at her post. The tensions that built up over contested South China Sea shoals and reefs began to relax. The hostile chatter on both sides ceased.

The space for quiet, sober diplomacy appears to have opened up. Perhaps some preliminary negotiations have happened away from the inflammatory public arena, as it should be. 

China is not about to yield to our claims, of course. The best intermediate outcome we can hope for here is to return to the diplomatic status quo ante: where the sovereignty question is pushed to the back shelf and open confrontation is studiously avoided.

When tensions were high, our businessmen were distressed. Some of them complained about their businesses being treated badly by Chinese authorities. Our banana exports were returned to us. Thousands of guest-nights earlier sold to Chinese tourists were cancelled. Filipino investments in China and Chinese investments in the Philippines were put on hold.

Whether we like it or not, China plays a large role in our economic emergence. Should our bilateral relations cool, a most promising economic partnership will shrivel. Numerous opportunities will be simply wiped off the board.

Our conflicting territorial claims are issues inconvenient for both sides. Both our countries are better off keeping these issues off the front and center of our economic relationship. A lot of quiet diplomatic work needs to be done. A seasoned senior diplomat like Brady will be functional.

The last thing our bilateral relationship needs at this time are stupid calls for boycotts of each other’s goods. Such campaign will only agitate the public and close the diplomatic space.

Our best recourse, if we put aside the warmongers, is to expand our diplomatic presence in China by adding personnel and encouraging trade missions. It is not enough to send Brady to Beijing. We should supply her with a much larger complement of diplomats — instead of appointing a coterie of “special envoys” who are never really on the ground building relationships. 

The worse that could happen now is for Brady to decide she is not healthy enough to continue on her posting.

If recent experience is any guide, it will take Manila another long round of tarrying in naming a replacement. We can do worse, of course, by appointing an incompetent crony to a vital posting to replace an ailing senior diplomat. The administration tried doing that earlier, completely insensitive to Beijing’s sensibilities.

This is why we wish Ambassador Brady quick recovery and the best of health.

We need a little more time for the importance of our complex bilateral relationship with China to be fully appreciated by the new dispensation in Manila. We need a little more time to repair the damage done by recent incidents. We need a steady hand in our Beijing embassy in the meantime.