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By Donald Kirk
The United States has strengthened its defenses in East Asia by gaining year-round, permanent access to nine bases in the Philippines. These aren't American bases, but U.S. troops can move in and out of them as needed for exercises or, for that matter, in a real war.
This month, the bases are supporting more than 17,000 American and Philippine troops in the biggest war games in the Philippines in years. The Philippines' President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. has reversed the policies of his predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, who undermined the Philippine-American alliance by courting China. Duterte saw a warm relationship with China's President Xi Jinping as needed to head off conflict in the South China Sea, which Beijing claims as Chinese territory.
Bongbong, whose father, Ferdinand Marcos, ruled as a dictator for 18 years before his overthrow in the People Power Revolution in 1986, has decided the country's future lies in renewing close ties with Washington. The Americans had to evacuate their huge air and naval bases more than 30 years ago after the Philippine Senate refused to renew the lease. The Yanks will not be returning in the same huge numbers as in the old days, but Bongbong has decided they're needed while the Chinese harass Philippine boats, chasing them out of customary fishing grounds and threatening to take over small Philippine islets.
The shift in Philippine policy parallels that in South Korea, where President Yoon Suk Yeol has endorsed joint South Korea-U.S. exercises on the ground, in the air and at sea for the first time since Donald Trump foolishly canceled them after his summit with North Korea's Kim Jong-un in Singapore in 2018.
Yoon's predecessor, Moon Jae-in, who met Kim on the line at Panmunjeom before the Singapore summit and saw him again in Pyongyang, discouraged joint exercises for the rest of his presidency. Until this year Americans and South Koreans had to content themselves with elaborate war games on computers ― not quite the same as live troops simulating real-world action.
The decisions of President Marcos and President Yoon to bolster defenses from Northeast to Southeast Asia carry inherent risks. In the Philippines, the idea of American and Philippine troops strengthening mutual defenses presents a challenge to Chinese forces who've been expanding air and naval bases in the Spratly Islands for years. The Chinese protest whenever American naval vessels cruise by to show the flag ― and defy the Chinese claim to control over one of the world's crucial international waterways.
The standoff on the South China Sea bears a parallel to what's happening around the Korean Peninsula, where Kim Jong-un has been ordering tests of sophisticated missiles. It's unlikely the Americans and North Koreans will begin firing at one another any more than the Chinese and the Americans are about to go to war. The risks, however, are rising while the Chinese keep the North on life support and discourage Kim from behaving as he might like.
Intrinsic in the rising confrontation are the dangers in the waters surrounding Taiwan, the breakaway Chinese province off the China coast between South Korea and the Philippines. Almost routinely, Chinese planes are flying into Taiwan's air defense identification zone while Chinese warships approach the island's territorial waters. It's a game of intimidation to keep Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen from anything to do with the Americans, on whom she's counting for arms and much else.
Meetings between Tsai and two speakers of the U.S. House of Representatives, first the Democratic Party's Nancy Pelosi, who stopped off in August, and then the Republican Kevin McCarthy, whom Tsai has just seen in California, have outraged Beijing.
To the Chinese, the revival of tight relations between the U.S. and the Philippines is equally worrisome. Three of the nine Philippine bases to which the Americans have access are within easy range of Taiwan, President Biden has promised the U.S. would live up to its "commitment" to defend Taiwan despite America's One China policy.
In the event of a war in Taiwan, South Korea would be reluctant to join the fray. The Koreans don't want to upset China in a conflict for the island. South Korea, like most other countries, including its American ally, recognizes Taiwan only as a province of China, by far the South's biggest trading partner.
The proximity of those Philippine bases to Taiwan is just as important as their relationship with the South China Sea. American warships periodically enter the Taiwan Straits. It's as though the battle lines are being drawn for a showdown though a real war remains a distant cloud on the horizon.
Donald Kirk (www.donaldkirk.com) covers war and peace in the region from Seoul and Washington.
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