The Philippine government on Monday, April 3, 2023, designated four new military camps where rotating batches of American forces will be allowed to be stationed indefinitely despite strong objections from China.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s administration announced in February that his approval of an expansion of the U.S. military presence to four additional Philippine military bases from the five existing sites under the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement between the longtime treaty allies.
Marcos asserted that the move would boost the Philippines’ coastal defense. It merges with the Biden administration’s efforts to strengthen an arc of military alliances in the Indo-Pacific to better counter China, including in any future confrontation over Taiwan.
The new sites identified by Marcos’ office include a Philippine navy base in Santa Ana and an international airport in Lal-lo, both in northern Cagayan province.
Those locations have infuriated Chinese officials because they would provide U.S. forces with a staging ground close to southern China and Taiwan, the self-governed island Beijing claims as its own.
The two other military areas are in northern Isabela province and a navy camp on Balabac island in the western province of Palawan.
Palawan faces the South China Sea, a key passage for global trade that Beijing claims virtually in its entirety and has taken increasingly aggressive actions that have threatened smaller claimant states, including the Philippines.
China and the Philippines, along with Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan, have been locked in increasingly tense territorial disputes over the busy and resource-rich South China Sea.
Washington lays no claims to the strategic waters but has deployed warships and fighter and surveillance aircraft for patrols that it says promote freedom of navigation and the rule of law, angering Beijing.
“That’s a trade route, that’s where more or less $3 trillion worth of trade passes. Our responsibility in collectively securing that is huge,” said Carlito Galvez, who heads the Philippine Defense Department.
New Locations To Bolster The Interoperability Of The U.S. And Philippine Armed Forces
In a statement, the U.S. Department of Defense noted that the new locations “will strengthen the interoperability of the U.S. and Philippine Armed Forces and allow us to respond more seamlessly together to address a range of shared challenges in the Indo-Pacific region.”
The four new military sites for American forces are “suitable and mutually beneficial” and will “boost the disaster response of the country” as a springboard for humanitarian and relief work during emergencies, Marcos’s office affirmed.
In a meeting last month with Philippine officials in Manila, however, a Chinese Foreign Ministry delegation expressed its strong opposition to an expanded U.S. military presence in the Philippines and warned of repercussions for regional peace and stability, a Philippine official involved in the talks said at the time.
Philippine diplomats replied that the decision to allow an expanded American military presence was in the Philippines’ national interest and would boost its ability to respond to natural disasters, the official said, suggesting the move was not aimed at China.
The Chinese Embassy also warned in a recent statement that the Philippine government’s security cooperation with Washington “will drag the Philippines into the abyss of geopolitical strife and damage its economic development at the end of the day.”
Territorial conflicts continue to be a major irritant in Philippine-China relations. Marcos’s administration has filed at least 77 of more than 200 diplomatic protests against China’s increasingly assertive actions in the disputed waters since he took office last year.
The Philippine Constitution prohibits the permanent basing of foreign troops and their involvement in local combat.
The 2014 agreement allows visiting American forces to stay indefinitely in rotating batches in barracks and other buildings they construct within designated Philippine camps with their defense equipment, except nuclear weapons.
READ ALSO: Finland Joins NATO Tomorrow
