[ad_1]
When China’s foreign minister visited the Philippines last weekend, he had a strong message for President Ferdinand E. Marcos Jr. from the Philippines: It is very important that Manila “handle the issues” related to Taiwan and the South China Sea, and do it properly. The previous commitment was not to choose a side, he said.
On Wednesday, Mr. Marcos attended the Philippines’ annual military exercises with the United States wearing an army fatigue jacket and closely inspecting American rocket launchers. Later, he sat next to the American ambassador as he watched an artillery unit take out a nearby target ship.
This is the first time in a decade that the Philippine president has participated in this joint military exercise, and the message is not clear: After years of tolerating China’s aggressive campaign to accelerate territorial disputes with the Philippines, the Philippine government is once again pivoting to the region. oldest ally, the United States.
This desire comes as relations between the United States and China have been on the decline for years. Across Asia, governments are growing increasingly concerned about these tensions, fearing, in particular, a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan. In Manila, there was heightened concern about what the attack would mean for the Philippines, whose northernmost inhabited island is just 93 miles from Taiwan.
The ship’s sinking on Wednesday – the first exercise in the Philippines – is the culmination of this year’s joint exercise, called “Balikatan,” or shoulder to shoulder.
For two weeks, the military has been training all over the Philippines, including on Basco Island, which overlooks the Bashi Strait, the waterway that separates Taiwan and the Philippines. They represent the largest gathering since the joint exercise began 38 years ago, involving 12,200 soldiers from the United States and 5,400 Philippine troops.
The new nature of the joint exercise underscores the changes in the Philippine defense establishment. For years, the army saw the main threat as internal. The soldiers fought communist insurgencies, and later, terrorist groups. But it is now reorienting itself to an international defense strategy after Mr. Marcos ordered the military in February not to “lose an inch of territory.”
In an interview, Lt. Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr., commander of the Philippine Army, said that Russia’s attack on Ukraine was an eye-opener.
“Many people say that Russia cannot invade Ukraine,” he said. “Anything is possible. So we have to prepare – for any threat.
The joint exercise is another important step in security cooperation since the announcement earlier this year that the Philippines would give the US military access to four new military staging sites in the country – three facing Taiwan and one facing the South China Sea.
General Brawner said one of his priorities now is figuring out how to evacuate the 150,000 Filipino workers in Taiwan if war breaks out. Earlier this month, China’s ambassador to the Philippines, Huang Xilian, sparked outrage in the Philippines after he said the government should “oppose ‘Taiwan independence’ instead of stoking fire by giving US access to military bases near the Taiwan Strait” if it cares about Filipino workers in Taiwan. .
Like several other Southeast Asian countries, the Philippines has been locked in a decades-long dispute with China over resource-rich islands and important fishing grounds in the South China Sea. But Beijing’s push to occupy reefs and shoals in the sea has arguably become a more galvanizing issue in the Philippines than anywhere else.
Many Filipino fishermen say they are constantly harassed by Chinese militia boats and can no longer fish around the island. A 2021 poll of 1,200 Filipinos showed that nearly half of them felt that the Philippine government was “not doing enough” on the South China Sea dispute. At the time, the former president, Rodrigo Duterte, had embraced China, saying it could not engage in a war it could not win.
Euan Graham, senior fellow for Indo-Pacific defense and strategy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said that “what has changed is that the Philippines has concluded that it needs the United States as the only realistic way to balance China.”
The Philippines’ defense budget for this year is only about $4.2 billion, and it has some of the high-powered weapons that China has. But it has got some Brahmos long range missiles from India and two frigates from South Korea equipped with anti-ship missiles. Israel has provided antiaircraft missiles.
More weapons may come. After the foreign and defense ministers of the United States and the Philippines held talks earlier this month, Washington said it would implement a “security sector assistance road map” in the Philippines, which “will guide joint defense modernization investments.” Mr. Marcos is set to meet with President Joe Biden next week in Washington.
Collin Koh, a researcher and maritime security expert in Southeast Asia, said the Philippines could “help complete China’s defense planning” in the South China Sea. “Weaker actors may win,” he said, pointing to how Ukraine’s heavily armed military has shaken and harassed Russian forces over the past year.
In the event of an attack on the Philippines, General Brawner said his army “will defend unilaterally at first, but we will expect help from our allies and partners.”
Although the United States and the Philippines were bound by a mutual defense treaty in 1951, many Philippine officials have long doubted whether the United States would help the Philippines in the event of a Chinese attack. Now, he says he is more confident, especially after several visits by high-level US officials.
Maj. Gen. Joseph A. Ryan, commander of the US 25th Infantry Division, based in Hawaii, said the US Army had a seminar with its Philippine counterpart in Manila in late February, during which the Filipinos “discussed concepts for the defense of the Philippines” in case of an attack from China.
“They gave it to us because they wanted us to see it,” General Ryan said by phone. “And I’m sure he also wants us to know that he’s calling us for help.”
General Ryan said this is an example of a significant change in the attitude of our partners in the Philippines. “This is an area where two years ago, they did not open a level of dialogue with us on this particular topic,” he said.
Most polls show that the Philippines is overwhelmingly pro-American, and the relationship goes back to the Philippines’ history as an American territory from 1898 to 1946. Some nationalist groups are angry that the Philippines is caught in a geopolitical contest that doesn’t exist. from the chosen one. But a survey conducted late last year by Pulse Asia, a polling firm, showed that 84 percent of Filipinos believe the Marcos administration should work with the United States to defend Philippine sovereignty in the South China Sea.
General Brawner said that when the United States had a base in the Philippines, he felt safe because he saw American jet streaks in the sky. But the closure of those bases – in Subic Bay and Clark Air Base – in the early 1990s coincided with “some claimants” in the South China Sea becoming more aggressive.
He said he invited Charles Flynn, the commander of the US Pacific Army, to the island of Corregidor earlier this month, where, as part of a tour, they both saw American guns supplied to the Philippines in the early 1900s. . This prompted General Flynn to say that America was ready for a war that occurred forty years later, according to General Brawner.
“So he said: ‘This could be history repeating itself,'” General Brawner said.
Jason Gutierrez and Camille Elemia contribute reports.
[ad_2]
Source link