US- Philippines step up alliance amid SCS row
The Biden administration on Friday reassured the Philippines anew that the US commitment to the country’s defence is steadfast amid increasing concerns about provocative Chinese actions in disputed areas of the South China Sea.
A day after President Joe Biden convened a trilateral summit involving himself, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the US and Filipino foreign and defence ministers and national security advisers met to discuss strategic and military issues.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin and national security adviser Jake Sullivan hosted their Philippine counterparts at the State Department.
“Today’s meeting reflects the growing and deepening cooperation between our countries on a broad array of issues and of course our shared commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific, including in the South China Sea,” Blinken said in brief opening remarks.
“We very much welcome this opportunity to pursue that cooperation, that collaboration and of course we stand with the Philippines in our iron-clad defence commitments including the Mutual Defence Treaty.”
Philippine Foreign Minister Enrique Manalo echoed those remarks. “We attach a lot of importance to this meeting especially in light of recent developments in the South China Sea, especially China’s escalation of its harassment,” he said.
“We are determined to assert our sovereign rights, especially within our exclusive economic zone.”
Austin later hosted Marcos at the Pentagon, where they discussed ways to deepen military cooperation, including by increasing the frequency of joint patrols in the South China Sea.
Austin noted that the Pentagon’s budget request for 2025 includes $128 million for 36 projects at Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement sites, which would more than double the amount it has invested since the programme began 10 years ago.
“This visit here to the Pentagon
reaffirms once again the strength of the relationship between the US and the Philippines in the face of all of the threats and challenges that we have had to face together,” Marcos said.
He said he hoped the agreements reached on Thursday “will make the safety, the peace and the stability of the South China Sea a reality.”On Thursday, at the summit, Biden said the US treaty obligations to its Pacific allies, like Japan and the Philippines, were “ironclad.”
“Any attack on Philippine aircraft, vessels or armed forces in the South China Sea would invoke our mutual defence treaty,” Biden said. The White House billed the first trilateral summit with Japan and the Philippines as a potent response to China’s attempts at “intimidation” and said it would send a message that China is “the outlier in the neighbourhood,” according to an administration official.
The US and the Philippines have had a mutual treaty in place for over 70 years. Biden’s vigorous reinforcement of the American commitment comes in the midst of persistent skirmishes between the Philippine and Chinese coast guards in the disputed South China Sea. Relations between China and the Philippines have been repeatedly tested by confrontations involving the two nations’ coast guard vessels there.
Chinese coast guard ships also regularly approach disputed Japanese-controlled East China Sea islands near Taiwan.
China’s “gray-zone” harassment involves military-grade lasers, water cannon firings, and ship ramming against Philippine vessels near the disputed Second Thomas Shoal.