By Richard Heydarian
Recent unprecedented White House summit of the leaders of the US, Japan and the Philippines put the spotlight on a new, informal alliance that could reshape Asia’s security scene.
In a joint statement, US President Joe Biden, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida underscored their shared commitment to “a free and open Indo-Pacific and international order based on international law.”
The trio pledged to pursue comprehensive strategic cooperation “for decades to come.” Shortly afterward, the Philippine foreign and defense secretaries and the country’s national security adviser met in Washington with their American counterparts, debuting a new “3+3” format for high-level discussions.
To be sure, Washington, Tokyo and Manila show little inclination to formalize their alliance. In the face of China’s clear discomfort, Marcos took pains this week to stress that the trio’s cooperation was not “directed at anyone or against anyone,” and that he would not grant the US access to additional military bases.
Yet the actions the Philippine president has taken, along with the leaders of Japan and the U.S., over the past year have put their countries on path toward increasingly close cooperation that has the potential to dramatically impact the security environment in Southeast Asia and beyond.
Perhaps most significantly, Marcos granted Washington access last year to four additional Philippine military bases, mostly in the country’s north near Taiwan, adding to a previous set of five facilities elsewhere.
“These are reactions to what has happened in the South China Sea, to the aggressive actions that we have had to deal with,” the president said Tuesday, noting Chinese interference with Philippine fishing and military operations.
At last week’s summit, Biden affirmed that “any attack on Philippine aircraft, vessels, or armed forces in the South China Sea” would lead to the invocation of Washington’s mutual defense treaty with Manila.
Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of US senators submitted a bill to provide $2.5 billion in defense aid over five years to the Philippines. This could also pave the way for the Southeast Asian nation to acquire desperately needed modern fighter jets and warships.
At the summit, the U.S. and Japan pledged to support the development of the Luzon Economic Corridor, a planned network of new energy and transport infrastructure, via the Group of Seven’s Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment.
Jose Manuel Romualdez, the Philippine ambassador to the US, told reporters after the summit that the government expects to receive $100 billion in new investment from the U.S. and Japan over the next decade.
While in Washington, Kishida and Marcos also discussed Japan’s own new program to provide security aid, and a planned agreement that would give their two countries’ militaries access to each other’s bases to ease movement of troops and equipment.
This trilateral cooperation has ramped up exceptionally quickly.
China Coast Guard vessels fire water cannon toward a Philippine resupply vessel in the South China Sea on March 5. © Reuters
After becoming president in June 2022, Marcos chose China for his first major state visit, in line with a campaign pledge to pursue a “new golden era” of bilateral relations with Beijing. But the trip proved largely fruitless, with China refusing to offer tangible concessions in relation to the territorial dispute in the South China Sea, or to deal with promised investment projects in the Philippines that have stalled.
As a result, Marcos stepped up his effort to repair relations with Washington which had been damaged under predecessor Rodrigo Duterte. Last June saw the inaugural meeting of national security advisers of the U.S., Japan and the Philippines, and the first joint exercise among their coast guards.
Yet as the Philippines has drawn closer to Washington and its allies for support against Chinese bullying in the South China Sea, Beijing has deployed even more forceful tactics while at the same time warning Manila about “playing with fire.”
This has seen China’s maritime forces increasingly make use of water cannon and blocking maneuvers against Philippine vessels, leading to injuries and damage. That has only further fueled the cycle of estrangement, reinforcing public hostility toward China in the Philippines and driving Marcos deeper into Washington’s embrace.
The path ahead, though, will be challenging.
Marcos’ comments about the defensive nature of the Philippines’ growing security ties with Japan and the U.S. partly reflect his keenness to avoid excessively alienating fellow ASEAN members.
Under Chinese coaxing, Manila’s neighbors have been largely silent about the water cannon incidents and other bullying behavior. Some have even implied that the Philippines is the regional troublemaker.
So even though Beijing’s aggressive territorial claims in the South China Sea affect much of ASEAN, the bloc has declined as a group to back Manila. Yet Marcos does not want to estrange potential allies like Vietnam any more than necessary.
In building out the three-way security relationship, the Philippines is also competing against other American strategic priorities, including entanglements in ongoing conflicts in Europe and the Middle East. The picture will get more complicated should Donald Trump return to the White House next year.
It is hard to say though how far Biden, Kishida and Marcos can go to institutionalize the trilateral security relationship in the meantime to make sure it endures under a second Trump administration, however, given Trump’s inclination to completely revamp the American security establishment. Yet in the shadow of China, the three nations have little alternative to urgently seeking to expand and bolster their emerging alliance to jointly protect the rules-based order in Asia.
