[ad_1]
Joe Biden has said the US is “ironclad” in its commitment to defending the Philippines, including in the highly contested South China Sea where Philippine vessels have reported continued harassment by China.
The US president hailed the two countries’ “deep friendship” as he hosted Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos in the White House on Monday. “We are facing new challenges and I couldn’t think of a better partner to have than you,” Biden told Marcos before their meeting.
Marcos’s visit comes at a time of concern over what the two countries regard as China’s aggressive behaviour in the South China Sea and near Taiwan. Marcos said “geopolitical issues” meant the Philippines was located in a region facing “arguably the most complicated geopolitical situation in the world right now”.
The White House announced further efforts to strengthen economic and military ties, including the joint adoption of defence guidelines to deepen the two countries’ cooperation across land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace. Washington said it planned to transfer three C-130 aircraft and additional coastal patrol vessels from the US to the Philippines.
The US also said it was launching a new trade mission to enhance investment in the Philippines’ innovation economy, its clean energy transition and critical minerals sector, and in food security.
US-Philippine relations had soured under former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte who sought closer ties with China, and was reluctant to confront Beijing over the countries’ competing claims in the South China Sea. However, Marcos has revived the alliance, and earlier this year granted the US expanded access to Philippines military bases in strategic areas of the country, enabling it to better monitor Chinese activity in the South China Sea and near Taiwan. Last month, the US and Philippines also staged their largest ever joint military drills.
In a joint statement, Marcos and Biden affirmed “the importance of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait as an indispensable element of global security and prosperity”.
A senior US official told reporters that the meeting between Marcos and Biden was the first “at this level and intensity” between the two countries in decades.
“The US remains ironclad in our commitment to the defence of the Philippines, including the South China Sea,” Biden said. An armed attack on Philippine armed forces, public vessels, or aircraft in the Pacific, including in the South China Sea, would invoke US mutual defence commitments under the 1951 US-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty.
Just days before Marcos’s visit to the US, the Philippines accused a Chinese coastguard ship of making “highly dangerous manoeuvres” near the disputed Second Thomas Shoal. A Chinese Coast Guard ship sought to block its Philippine patrol vessel, causing a near-collision according to journalists who were present, including Association Press.
It is the latest allegation of Chinese aggression in the South China Sea. Earlier this year, in February, Marcos summoned the Chinese ambassador to express concern over Chinese activity in the disputed waters, after a Chinese coastguard directed a “military-grade laser light” at a Philippine vessel, temporarily blinding a crew member.
The Philippines has filed at least 77 diplomatic protests over Chinese activity in the South China Sea since Marcos took office in June, and he has vowed the country “will not lose one inch” of its territory.
China claims almost all of the South China Sea – though an international tribunal in The Hague has rejected this.
Marcos said it was “only natural for the Philippines to look to its sole treaty partner in the world to strengthen and to redefine the relationship that we have, and the roles that we play in the face of those rising tensions that we see now around the South China Sea and Asia-Pacific and Indo-Pacific regions.”
[ad_2]
Source link
