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WASHINGTON – President Biden met with President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. of the Philippines at the White House on Friday, a visit intended to send a message to China that the Filipino leader plans to deepen the country’s relationship with the United States.
Mr. Marcos’ trip came days after the US and Philippine militaries held joint exercises aimed at curbing China’s influence in the South China Sea and strengthening the United States’ ability to defend Taiwan if China attacked. The exercise is part of a rapid and intensive effort between the two countries: In February, the Pentagon announced that the US military would expand its presence in the Philippines, and this spring, four new military sites were announced.
“We are facing new challenges and I can’t think of a better partner than you,” Mr Biden told Mr Marcos in the Oval Office on Monday. The President listed initiatives that both countries will work on, including climate change and clean energy. Mr. Biden also announced a trade and investment mission to the Philippines to encourage private sector investment in the country.
But Mr. Biden insisted that the main purpose of the visit, according to American officials, was to maintain the Philippines’ security and military capabilities.
“The United States also remains ironclad in our commitment to the defense of the Philippines, including the South China Sea, and we will continue to support the Philippines’ military modernization,” Mr. Biden said.
The trip is the latest push by the Biden administration to strengthen ties with its key Asian ally – which is also a military treaty partner with the United States – as tensions with China rise. Mr. Biden welcomed South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol for a state visit last week with discussions largely focused on curbing North Korea’s missile program, whose leadership has been increasingly emboldened by China’s backing.
In January, Mr. Biden hosted Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at the White House. He will travel to Japan and Australia this month to maintain ties with allies in the Indo-Pacific.
The strategic importance of the Philippines is a matter of distance. The northernmost island of Itbayat is less than 100 miles from Taiwan. An increased US military presence could allow a rapid force response in a war with China. For the United States, Mr. Marcos was an enthusiastic but untested partner.
Mr. Biden and his advisers have focused on cultivating Mr. Marcos – who went by Bongbong and his son and named former dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos – as a regional ally since his inauguration last year. Mr. Marcos wants to repair relations between his government and the United States, which were damaged under the leadership of former President Rodrigo Duterte, especially in his brutal anti-drug campaign. Mr. Marcos won last year’s election by forming an alliance with Mr. Duterte’s daughter, Sara Duterte.
Unlike Mr. Duterte, who is friendly to Beijing and sometimes confrontational or contemptuous of American leadership, Mr. Marcos has tried to return to the United States to restore a decades-old but complicated alliance.
In the Spanish-American War of 1898, the United States captured the Philippines from Spain, which had ruled the archipelago for centuries. American forces then brutally suppressed the Philippine independence movement, in a war largely forgotten in the United States, but not in the Philippines.
Japan invaded the island during World War II, and America and the Philippines fought together to end the occupation. The Philippines gained independence in 1946, and in 1951 signed a joint defense treaty with the United States.
American officials say that Mr. Marcos has no desire to get directly into the middle of the conflict between the two countries, but he is also under domestic pressure to defend his country: 84 percent of Filipinos believe that Mr. Marcos’ administration should cooperate with the United States to protect sovereignty in disputed waters, according to a poll published last year.
“All the gains the US is making in the region are less about US success and more about China not being able to stop kicking its smaller neighbors,” said Gregory B. Poling, director of the Southeast Asia Program and Asia Maritime Transparency. Initiatives at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He added that polls among Filipinos show frustration with Beijing and support for the United States. The Biden administration, he said, “walked through an open door.”
Beijing has claimed historical rights to much of the South China Sea, and Manila has claimed that Chinese ships have harassed and intimidated Philippine fishing boats. In recent days, the United States has accused Beijing of harassing Philippine ships at sea.
The State Department urged China to “refrain from provocative and unsafe actions.” An armed attack on Philippine ships or forces, the department warned, “would call for a U.S. defense commitment.”
US officials hope that the fragile Marcos-Duterte accord is strong enough to withstand pressure domestically but also from Beijing, which has warned the Philippine government to “deal with issues” related to Taiwan and the South China Sea. The response, last week, was the largest joint exercise between the United States and the Philippines.
“It’s only natural,” Mr. Marcos said in the Oval Office, that the Philippines “for the only treaty partner in the world to strengthen, to redefine, the relationship we have and the role we play in the face of the rising tensions that we now see in around the South China Sea and Asia Pacific.
The visit is the first for a Philippine leader in more than a decade. As a senator and member of the Foreign Relations Committee, Mr. Biden was among the lawmakers who criticized President Ronald Reagan’s deep support for Mr. Marcos’ father, who ruled the Philippines for 20 years and declared martial law before a rebellion led to his ouster. in 1986. Mr. Biden is now trying to build an alliance with the younger Mr. Marcos.
“We can do a lot together,” Mr. Biden said during a meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly last fall. “I’m eager to make sure we do.”
Isabella Egg contributed reports from London.
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