NEW YORK – We should find out quickly what Filipinos think of the projected upgrading of Philippine relations with China and the corresponding downgrading of dealings with the United States.

The comparative findings would be useful to President Rodrigo Duterte as he journeys to Beijing next week to find out what China has to offer before he redefines the Philippines’ relations with the two super-suitors.

It would be disastrous to base on historical hurts and the raw gut of neophytes a new set of foreign policies that could drag an entire region into a warlike situation nobody wants.

It has been said that a good leader is a good follower – of his people. In crafting domestic and foreign policies, the leader must be guided by a wise balancing of what his people want and what they need.

We suggest that President Duterte consult first his anxious people, maybe via an honest survey, before he crosses the Yangtze River – the “Rubicon” in his mind – on his way to his Beijing rendezvous.

There is a paucity of surveys on how Filipinos regard their Chinese neighbors. All we have found was the 2015 survey of Pew Research Center, a US-based think tank, reporting that global perceptions of China are “on balance, negative in most of the nations surveyed.” It added:

“Ratings for China have slipped in France, Spain, India, Italy, the UK and Germany… 37 percent of Americans express a favorable opinion of China, essentially unchanged from last year’s 38 percent.” But there was no mention of Filipinos’ opinion of China and the Chinese.

As for Filipinos’ regard for Americans, we have Pew reporting in 2015 that 92 percent of Filipinos view the US favorably. The Philippines has consistently topped its surveys—leading to the arguable conclusion that Filipinos are the most pro-American people in the world.

The Pew survey was based on 45,435 face-to-face and telephone interviews in 40 countries. In the Philippines, 1,000 adults were interviewed in Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilonggo, Ilokano and Bicolano.

Its 2014 figures showed that 93 percent of Filipinos were concerned that territorial disputes between China and neighboring countries, including the Philippines, could lead to a military conflict.

• Duterte drops favorable UNCLOS ruling

DUTERTE is not invoking the ruling of the arbitration court at The Hague that China’s claim over almost all of the South China Sea, including some Philippine areas, violates the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea that it has signed with the Philippines and 193 other nations.

His dropping the UNCLOS ruling, his sole leverage in Beijing, and several security arrangements with the US were conditions imposed by Asia’s Goliath to agree to dialogue with a David.

Recognizing the futility of a confrontational approach – and with the US not willing and not ready to fight China despite the 1951 Phl-US Mutual Defense Treaty — Duterte yielded the option of forcing the issue.

In the process, he also gave up the possibility of having the Philippines’ traditional allies and sympathetic groups pressuring Beijing to relent on some submissions awarded to Manila, the petitioner, under the UNCLOS.

It was unfortunate that instead of rallying international support, Duterte antagonized many of sympathizers by talking negatively about them, at times cursing them, for slights that could have been ironed out amicably.

But Duterte’s conciliatory posture toward the mandarins has promise. After all, what matters is the end-result of diplomacy.

If he could bring home creditable results – such as China’s allowing access to Panatag (Scarborough) shoal to Filipino fishermen — that could be enough bacon until the next round of talks if China does not lop off too heavy a pound of flesh.

• FVR pushes for pacific use of SCS

DUTERTE may lift some ideas from the peaceful co-existence line of former President Fidel V. Ramos who has been studying ways for transforming the South China Sea from a flashpoint to a region of peace and cooperation.

In a call from Makati, General Ramos discussed with us several ideas, one of which is a regime based on the interdependence of nations. (It seems the Ilokano senior citizen failed to notice that the Smart-PLDT meter kept ticking as he engaged us in an expensive overseas conversation.)

He said that the nations whose ships and patrol craft ply the increasingly rough waters of the South China Sea should agree to pull back from a military buildup that can only end in killing innocent people in an armed confrontation.

Instead, he said, the protagonists should join hands and consider launching hospital ships, evacuation craft, mercy helicopters, etc., whose objective is “safety of life at sea” encompassing rescue, relief, visits of floating hospitals, using such mercy seacraft.

Ramos (West Point ‘50) said the real enemy of the US and China is not each other, but Climate Change, which has started to trigger devastating natural disasters, large-scale loss of lives, wiping out of entire communities, and the ruin of the world’s food supply.

Meanwhile, whatever agreement(s) Duterte or his designated plenipotentiary signs in Beijing will not be the first. Several major bilateral agreements have been signed since 1975 when diplomatic ties were opened. Some of them are:

Joint Trade Agreement (1975); Scientific and Technological Cooperation Agreement (1978); Postal Agreement (1978); Air Services Agreement (1979); Visiting Forces Agreement (1999); Cultural Agreement (1979); Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (1992); Agreement on Agricultural Cooperation (1999); Tax Agreement (1999); and Treaty on Mutual Judicial Assistance on Criminal Matters (2000). In May 2000, on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the opening of diplomatic relations, the two countries signed a Joint Statement defining the framework of bilateral relations in the 21st Century.