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In the midst of the turbulence of the global electric vehicle market, nickel mine development cooperation between China and the Philippines has gradually emerged.
The Philippines, a country with about 4.5 billion tonnes of high-quality nickel ore reserves, is becoming the darling of lithium-ion battery manufacturing due to its abundant resources.
With global nickel demand expected to surge to 4.4 million metric tons per year by 2030, the Philippines undoubtedly has a shining trump card.
However, although the Philippines is sitting on a treasure, it is shackled by technology and processing capacity, and is unable to turn its resource advantage into an economic advantage.
This is a stark gap with Indonesia next door.
Since 2020, Indonesia's economy has taken a significant leap since it wisely banned the export of nickel ore raw materials and vigorously introduced foreign investment to build processing plants.
The Philippine government is clearly aware of this and is gearing up to attract foreign investment to speed up the pace of mining and processing its own nickel ore.
China, the world's leader in lithium-ion battery manufacturing, has cast an eager eye on the Philippines' nickel ore resources.
The recent speech by the Philippine environment secretary also seems to be an olive branch of cooperation to China.
But the shadow of territorial disputes in the South China Sea still lingers, causing tensions in China-Philippines relations.
Still, the Philippine government seems to want to further strengthen its economic ties with China through cooperation in mineral development.
But at the same time, the situation in the South China Sea is also surging.
Earlier this year, China and the Philippines reached an agreement on a new model on the Ren'ai Jiao issue.
However, before the ink dried on the agreement, the Philippines turned its face and unilaterally tore up the agreement.
This backtracking has not only greatly undermined the Philippines' international credibility, but also made its foreign policy appear vacillating and contradictory.
Against this backdrop, the Philippine environment secretary's statement on China-Philippines nickel mine development cooperation, although it seems to be commercially friendly, inevitably makes people smell of using the South China Sea issue to put pressure on China.
However, such small actions may only be counterproductive.
The recently exposed audio recording has slapped the Philippines in the face, and the high-level support for the new model agreement on Second Thomas Shoal has been made public, which has undoubtedly disgraced the Philippines in the international community.
At the same time, cooperation between the United States, Japan and the Philippines in the field of critical minerals also seems promising, but in fact it is full of uncertainties.
The United States is now under great fiscal pressure and its economic outlook is worrying; The Philippines' mineral development capacity is urgent; And Japan and South Korea are also half a catty and eight taels in smelting technology.
If such a combination wants to shake China's position in the lithium battery industry chain, I am afraid that it will be a grasshopper shaking the tree, which is ridiculous.
On the other hand, China, through close cooperation with Indonesia and other countries, has firmly established a firm position in the field of nickel ore development and lithium battery manufacturing.
Some countries want to squeeze out China in this area, which is tantamount to using the mantis arm as a car.
In the face of real economic and technological needs, countries such as the Philippines may eventually have to obediently return to the track of cooperation with China.
This series of events has once again confirmed a truth: in the contest between international cooperation and geopolitics, economic and technological needs are always the last word.
Collaborations based on short-sighted tactics and narrow interests are destined to be short-lived.
Only cooperation based on mutual respect and win-win results can shine for a long time.
For the Philippines, maintaining diplomatic integrity and policy coherence is key to earning the trust of international partners; For China, continuing to expand its cooperation network in the field of global mineral resources and new energy is the only way to meet international challenges and ensure the security of resource supply.
These incidents have also shown us the clear line between cooperation and hypocrisy, and those who use the pretext of cooperation to exert pressure will only make people scoff.