[OPINION] Pax Silica: Weaponizing the AI value chain

If there was anything new in the President’s State of the Nation Address last week, it was two words: Pax Silica. To the uninitiated, Pax Silica is a United States-led initiative to carve out and secure its own global AI supply chain in the face of China’s virtual control of critical minerals and rare earths as well as emerging dominance in chip fabrication and AI software development. So far, 24 countries have signed the agreement, each having a place in the chain — from mining and minerals processing, semiconductor and chip manufacturing, energy production, logistics, data centers, to the actual deployment of AI technologies. By joining Pax Silica, the Philippines hopes to ride on America’s mad scramble for global AI dominance. Our buy in? Aside from our rich mineral resources that are most crucial to AI, there’s 1,600 hectares of raw land in Capas, Tarlac, to be transformed by the US into an “Economic Security Zone” (ESZ) — ostensibly an “AI hub” that would host data centers, minerals processing facilities, and probably some semiconductor manufacturing, assembly and/or testing plants. And of course there’s our relatively cheap, docile, skilled, and English-speaking labor force ready for exploitation. ALSO ON RAPPLER What is Pax Silica? What are its goals, and what concerns does it raise? Why Energy Secretary Garin says Pax Silica is ‘too dangerous’ to plug into grid [OPINION] Pax Silica and the Philippines: Will we build the future or simply build it for others? [The Wide Shot] Why Pax Silica concerns people of faith ‘Fox Silica’? Presidential aspirant Sara Duterte has no clue what Pax Silica is Combined with our strategically located ports in Subic, Manila, and Batangas, the ESZ will be integrated into a “Luzon Economic Corridor” (LEC) to be developed with funding and investments from the US and Japan. Pax Silica is being hyped by the Marcos administration as the country’s vehicle for that penultimate leap-frog to the hi-tech industrial age, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs and an unprecedented rise in national income. That, at least, is the pipe dream. So far, sparse details have been released on the ESZ itself. The agreement is still being negotiated and up for signing this November when US Pres. Trump visits the country. Not an ordinary economic enterprise But Pax Silica is not an ordinary economic enterprise. It is also the latest US plot to contain China’s rise as an economic and military superpower. By bringing in the Philippines, Japan, and Taiwan to Pax Silica, the US is combining its Cold War-era island chain defense strategy with its AI value chain strategy to defeat what it considers its current major strategic rival. The Philippines, which hosts US military bases, troops, and facilities throughout its islands, sits at the center of this weaponized value chain. The Philippines belongs to the US “first island chain” running from Japan, through Okinawa, Taiwan, the Bashi Channel, the Western Philippine seaboard, and down towards Indonesia. The last few years have seen the reactivation of this chain to constrain China’s naval movement and capacity to project power in the Western Pacific. In the guise of Pax Silica, US Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) sites, drone bases, and missile launch pads will now be integrated with our commercial ports, rail links, digital infrastructure, energy systems, logistics corridors, and the ESZ to form one strategic architecture. The Philippines is being positioned not only as a US military outpost, but as a supply-chain node in its confrontation with China. Plunder and war What does this imply for the Philippines? One, our entry to Pax Silica will weaponize our industrial development. More than ever, our future will be dictated by Washington and the military-industrial-big tech complex that controls it. As early as its first pronouncements on the ESZ, US State Department officials were already mentioning the applicability of US common law, international arbitration for settling disputes, and some form of diplomatic immunity. Economic activities of the ESZ will be geared primarily towards US commercial and military interests, with local economic development and ecological impacts as an afterthought. Our long and sad experience with export processing enclaves and special economic zones immediately come to mind. Two, it will lead to the dislocation of indigenous people and farmers communities, and eat up much needed water and power resources away from serving domestic needs. This is the main concern of environmentalists and communities opposed to Pax Silica’s ESZ. But it’s not just the ESZ. The scramble for cheap critical minerals and rare earths for AI will mean heightened plunder of our mineral reserves, affecting even more upland and foreshore communities and resulting in more environmental catastrophes. Three, it will stoke more conflict with China and, in case war breaks out between the US and China, may make us the bombing capital of Southeast Asia. The experience of the US war on Iran is instructive. Iran retaliated not by bombing the US mainland. It bombed nearby Gulf states hosting US bases, troops, and facilities instead. The danger is real. We now host three types of US missile systems, including one that can launch Tomahawk cruise missiles. We have US drone facilities and command and intelligence centers as well. If open conflict finally breaks out between the US and China over Taiwan, the South China Sea or some other pretext, northern Luzon, the nine EDCA sites all over the country, Subic, Clark, and facilities in the ESZ and LEC will most likely become targets. Our infrastructure could be easily converted for military use — our ports, airfields, and industrial zones treated as extensions of US war logistics. Just like the Pax Americana before it, Pax Silica is just another euphemism for US imperialist plunder, intervention, and wars of aggression. – Rappler.com