U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin (R) walks past military guards at Camp Aguinaldo on Feb. 2, 2023 in Quezon City, Manila, Philippines. Austin is visiting Manila for meetings with Philippine officials in an effort to spice up bilateral ties between the 2 countries.
Rolex Delapena | Pool | Getty Images
America and the Philippines on Thursday announced plans to expand America’s military presence within the Southeast Asian nation, with access to 4 more bases as they seek to discourage China’s increasingly aggressive actions toward Taiwan and within the disputed South China Sea.
The agreement was reached as U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was within the country for talks about deploying U.S. forces and weapons in additional Philippine military camps.
In a joint announcement by the Philippines and the U.S., the 2 said they’d decided to speed up the total implementation of their so-called Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, which goals to support combined training, exercises and interoperability.
As a part of the agreement, the U.S. has allocated $82 million toward infrastructure improvements at five current EDCA sites, and expand its military presence to 4 recent sites in “strategic areas of the country,” in accordance with the statement.
Austin arrived within the Philippines on Tuesday from South Korea, where he said the U.S. would increase its deployment of advanced weapons equivalent to fighter jets and bombers to the Korean Peninsula to bolster joint training with South Korean forces in response to North Korea’s growing nuclear threat.
Within the Philippines, Washington’s oldest treaty ally in Asia and a key front within the U.S. battle against terrorism, Austin visited southern Zamboanga city and met Filipino generals and a small contingent of U.S. counterterrorism forces based in an area military camp, regional Philippine military commander Lt. Gen. Roy Galido said. The greater than 100 U.S. military personnel have provided intelligence and combat advice for years to Filipino troops battling a decades-long Muslim insurgency, which has considerably eased but stays a key threat.
More recently, U.S. forces have intensified and broadened joint training specializing in combat readiness and disaster response with Filipino troops on the nation’s western coast, which faces the South China Sea, and in its northern Luzon region across the ocean from the Taiwan Strait.
American forces were granted access to 5 Philippine military camps, where they might rotate indefinitely under the 2014 EDCA defense pact.
In October, the U.S. sought access for a bigger variety of its forces and weapons in a further five military camps, mostly within the north. That request could be high on the agenda in Austin’s meetings, in accordance with Philippine officials.
“The visit of Secretary Austin definitely, obviously could have to do with a lot of the continuing discussions on the EDCA sites,” Philippine Ambassador to Washington Jose Romualdez said at a news briefing.
Austin was scheduled to carry talks Thursday together with his Philippine counterpart, Carlito Galvez Jr., and National Security Adviser Eduardo Ano, Romualdez said. Austin will individually call on President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who took office in June and has since taken steps to boost relations with Washington.
The U.S. defense chief is the newest senior official to go to the Philippines after Vice President Kamala Harris in November in an indication of warming ties after a strained period under Marcos’s predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte.
Duterte had nurtured cozy ties with China and Russia and at one point threatened to sever ties with Washington, kick visiting American forces out and abrogate a significant defense pact.
Romualdez said the Philippines needed to cooperate with Washington to discourage any escalation of tensions between China and self-ruled Taiwan — not only due to the treaty alliance but to assist prevent a significant conflict.
“We’re in a Catch-22 situation. If China makes a move on Taiwan militarily, we’ll be affected — and all ASEAN region, but mostly us, Japan and South Korea,” Romualdez told The Associated Press, referring to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the 10-nation regional bloc that features the Philippines.
The Philippines and ASEAN members Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam, together with Taiwan, have been locked in increasingly tense territorial disputes with China within the South China Sea. The U.S. has been thought to be a vital counterweight to China within the region and has pledged to return to the defense of the Philippines if Filipino forces, ships or aircraft come under attack within the contested waters.
The Philippines used to host two of the biggest U.S. Navy and Air Force bases outside the American mainland. The bases were shut down within the early Nineties after the Philippine Senate rejected an extension, but American forces returned for large-scale combat exercises with Filipino troops under a 1999 Visiting Forces Agreement.
The Philippine Structure prohibits the everlasting basing of foreign troops and their involvement in local combat.