U.S., Philippines Forge Closer Military Ties Amid China Tensions
Cooperation comes despite legal challenge to military pact between the two allies
REUTERS/Erik De Castro
By Trefor Moss
Oct. 8, 2015 7:33 a.m. ET
6 COMMENTS
MANILA—The U.S. and the Philippines are strengthening their military ties despite a Philippine legal challenge to a defense pact between the two allies, at a time of friction with Beijing over islands in the South China Sea.
Exhibit A on that cooperation were the hundreds of American and Philippine Marines conducting amphibious landing drills up and down the Philippines this week, an exercise that ends on Friday.
Those drills were the third major exercise involving U.S. forces here this year, with more than 200 smaller military activities scheduled in 2015, a U.S. official in Manila said. The official added that such joint activities were among a broad range of initiatives designed to boost the U.S.-Philippine military alliance in spite of the pact’s legal delay.
Other U.S. activities in the Philippines include the rotational deployment of P-8 Poseidon surveillance aircraft from Okinawa, Japan, to Clark Airbase north of Manila, close to the disputed South China Sea.
The drills come after U.S. military officials said they were considering going a step further and using aircraft and Navy ships to directly contest Chinese territorial claims to a chain of rapidly expanding artificial islands. Such a move would raise the stakes in a regional showdown over who controls disputed waters in the South China Sea, where Beijing has been building artificial islands to cement is claims on the disputed region.
Washington is actively debating whether to challenge China by deploying near the islands and is likely to go ahead with the mission, said Greg Poling of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a U.S. think tank.
In a daily press briefing on Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Beijing was concerned about reports of U.S. vessels to within 20 nautical miles of waters that China claims. “During the recent state visit by our president and in our bilateral meetings, we had in-depth exchanges, and I believe the U.S. side is very clear about our principles and stances.”
Chinese officials generally dismiss complaints about the island-building, saying Beijing is entitled to undertake construction projects within its own sovereign territory.
Those tensions underpin the U.S.-Philippine military drills, which are clearly permitted under authority of a long-standing “visiting forces agreement” between the two countries.
Less clear is whether the U.S. is allowed under Philippine law to use the country to launch surveillance missions to monitor Chinese activities in the South China Sea, something the Philippines would like to do itself if it had the resources.
But that is what a spokesman for the U.S. Pacific Command said the U.S. Navy has been recently doing by deploying P-8 Poseidon surveillance aircraft to “fly maritime patrols routinely in international airspace throughout the region, including the international airspace over the South China Sea.”
Officially, the surveillance flights are in Clark to help train Philippine forces, said a U.S. official in Manila.
The U.S. and the Philippines only engage in activities which are legally permitted by existing treaties, said a Philippine defense department spokesman. The U.S. official in Manila said the surveillance flights were allowed as part of a training program and that the U.S. military conducts all its activities in the country legally at the invitation of the Philippine government.
Others are not so sure.
“The U.S. and Philippine governments have always found ways to liberally interpret the provisions of the existing agreements,” said Jose Antonio Custodio, a Philippine defense consultant. “There is an obvious bending” of the rules over military cooperation, he said.
As part of the Obama administration’s strategic rebalancing of interest towards the Asia-Pacific region it wants to station troops in the Philippines for the first time since the early 1990s when Manila terminated the U.S. base agreement.
But that effort, which is part of the bilateral Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, remains blocked until the Philippines Supreme Court resolves the legal case. A court spokesman said dates to hear the case haven’t been set, suggesting the case could drag on for months or years. Opponents of the deal lodged the Supreme Court challenge last year because they deem the pact illegal.
The two countries’ defense relationship is deepening in many ways despite the pact’s delay, the U.S. official in Manila said, including involves the recent activation of the Philippines’ new National Coast Watch Center, built with a $20 million U.S. government grant; the transfer of second-hand ships and aircraft; $40 million in foreign military financing for 2015; a new program designed to boost the Philippine military’s air assault capabilities; and aerial surveillance support.
The Philippines is also now moving ahead with the construction of facilities at Subic Bay—once a major U.S. naval base—to house new ships and planes currently being procured for the Philippine navy and air force, the Philippine defense department said. But these facilities are also intended as a future home for American forces under the stalled accord, Mr. Custodio said. The Philippines is “playing the role of real estate provider to the U.S. military,” he said.
Even so, the stalling of the pact limits what the U.S. and the Philippines can jointly achieve, Mr. Poling said. “The two sides are certainly cooperating at increasing levels, but they are doing so within pretty tight constraints,” he said.
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