A dear friend: A file photo from Sept 27, 1974, showing Mao meeting Imelda. — Photo taken from social media
For all her surfeit of shoes, former Philippine first lady Imelda Romualdez Marcos is fondly remembered by millions of Chinese as an ultimate diplomat who captivated the late chairman Mao Zedong and what was then an isolated and impoverished nation with her beauty, charm and elegance when she visited in 1974.
Accompanied by her only son, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, the incumbent president of the Philippines, the 10-day historic trip produced the iconic photo of Mao kissing her hand and paved the way for the normalisation of bilateral relations the following year.
Months later, she visited China again in 1975 with her husband, then President Ferdinand Marcos Sr, and their daughters.
When Marcos Sr offered to switch Manila’s diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing, Mao assured him that China would neither overthrow nor exploit the Philippines.
“We are one family now,” Mao declared.
Imelda also helped change the political landscape in South-East Asia, leading the way to China eventually pulling the plug on a contentious programme to export its revolution to Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.
But the instrumental role that Imelda played in China’s landmark decision to stop funding and arming the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its armed wing, the New People’s Army, has been taken for granted.
After normalisation, the CPP was left to fend for itself, possibly preventing scores of military and civilian casualties resulting from fighting between the Armed Forces of the Philippines and Communist guerrillas over the ensuing years.
“Many university students in the 1960s still vividly remember seeing Chairman Mao kissing Madam Marcos’s hand. She built a bridge between China and the Philippines,” said Hu Deping, the eldest son of the late Communist Party general secretary Hu Yaobang.
“What she did was a great thing for our countries. We hope bilateral relations can be strengthened under her son,” said Hu, a retired party official who held a rank equivalent to a Cabinet minister.
When Chinese Vice-President Wang Qishan attended the June 30 presidential inauguration of Marcos Jr, the former paid courtesy calls on the President and Imelda hours after the ceremony, coincidentally two days before she turned 93.
“Wang Qishan did not represent himself. He was (President) Xi Jinping’s special envoy. It was tantamount to a meeting between Madam Marcos and Xi,” said a Chinese source familiar with Beijing’s thinking, requesting anonymity.
“It reflects the importance China attaches to her.”
The unique status of the Marcoses means the mother and son could play the role of regional peacemakers as Asean navigates choppy waters in the years ahead.
Tensions have been mounting in the Taiwan Strait since United States House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Aug 2-3 trip to the democratic island in defiance of Chinese warnings.
Imelda and Marcos Jr are voices that China would listen to in the event military conflict breaks out between China and the US over Taiwan, with the Philippines and other Asean nations possibly becoming collateral damage of the unfinished Chinese civil war.
“Madam Marcos and President Marcos (Jr) are China’s old friends. We have the utmost respect for the family and would at the very least listen to what they have to say,” the source said.
Marcos Sr ruled the Philippines for about two decades – nine years of that under martial law with the blessings of the country’s former colonial master, the United States, in the face of a Communist insurgency, a separatist Muslim rebellion in the south and a series of bombings in Manila.
China, meanwhile, played the long game and “never abandoned the Marcoses”, said Herman Tiu Laurel, president of the think-tank Asian Century Philippines Strategic Studies Institute.
“For the Chinese, Imelda has immense adoration and trust.”
Without doubt, Imelda has a special place in the collective hearts of the Chinese people.
But Imelda holds no sway over President Marcos Jr’s domestic or foreign policies.
“I don’t think PBBM will be relying in any way on Imelda for advice on any matters of state at all,” said Laurel, referring to the President’s initials.
“But the influence is already there and will always be there. PBBM is a more inscrutable leader than both his father and mother, but the experiences and the lessons from the parents will always be there to guide his every move as president.” — The Straits Times/ANN
