A Comparative Study Of The Public Diplomacy In The Philippines By The Obama And Trump Administrations

After the terrorist attacks on September 11,the United States began to attach importance to the role of public diplomacy.At that time,however,the focus of public diplomacy of the Bush administration was mainly in the Middle East,focusing on counter-terrorism.During the George Bush administration,the United States did do some unilateral acts on the international stage,which damaged the image of the United States and the soft power of the country,so its influence in Southeast Asia declined.After Barack Obama took office,the U.S.once again attached great importance to the development of relations with Southeast Asian countries.On the one hand,it was necessary to strengthen economic and trade cooperation with Southeast Asian countries to expand the economic interests of the U.S.in the region;on the other hand,it was to hedge against the urgent and realistic demand of China's rise and attract the ASEAN countries have become the preventive diplomacy of the United States.The United States implements an offshore balance strategy in Southeast Asia,which aims to fight against the rise of China.During this period,the alliance between the United States and the Philippines was further consolidated in many aspects.The United States increased its public diplomacy investment in the Philippines.After Donald Trump came to power,the United States adjusted its strategy to Southeast Asia again.Because of Trump's businessman background,the United States in this period paid more attention to economic cooperation,military,and other kinds of hard power diplomacy,and the emphasis on soft power and public diplomacy was lower than that of the Obama administration.The image and popularity of the United States in Southeast Asia,especially in the Philippines,have declined significantly.Besides,another critical factor is that after Rodrigo Duterte was elected as the new president in 2016,the Philippines' policy towards the United States is more independent due to the consideration of power balance among great powers.To some extent,this practice of not "taking sides" has also directly affected the Trump administration's policy orientation towards the Philippines.But judging from the recent two presidents of the United States and their specific public diplomacy practice to the Philippines,the Philippines is not completely marginalized either in the strategic framework of "Pivot to Asia" or "America first." Both the Obama and Trump administrations have taken the development of cooperation with the Philippines as one of the core objectives of their Southeast Asian policies,and have invested heavily in education exchange,international development assistance,disaster relief,and post-disaster reconstruction,youth talent training,English learning,etc.From the case of Mindanao,we can see that the level of bilateral relations between the United States and the Philippines is related to the Philippine people's perception of the United States.