China’s threats to invade Taiwan pose risks to PH

By Fr. Shay Cullen

On Nov. 7, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told her country’s legislature that if China attacked Taiwan, it could be considered a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan and trigger a military response. China called her remark “not just dangerously provocative, but fundamentally perverse.”

“A conflict between Japan and China would not be a limited skirmish; it would likely draw in other powers, including the United States, and could quickly spiral into a large-scale conflict with unimaginable consequences,” China said in response. With China being the most powerful and most aggressive nation in all of Asia, these threats shouldn’t be taken lightly.

What one of those “unimaginable consequences” could be a conflict in the South China Sea, making the Philippines a prime target of a missile attack if Beijing ever decides to invade Taiwan, which it has threatened on numerous occasions if the island would not “reunite” with China. Beijing claims Taiwan as an integral part of the mainland. However, the island is of great strategic and economic importance to both the US and Japan.

The US has considerable economic investments in Taiwan, and is dependent on it because of the island’s near-monopoly in manufacturing powerful and unique semiconductors needed for almost every electronic device on the planet, including those needed by the US military.

The former Subic Naval Base, once the homeport of the US Seventh Fleet, was a powerful deterrence to Chinese aggression. When the Philippine Senate voted not to renew the country’s military bases agreement with the US on Sept. 16, 1991, it was a significant political and military setback for American presence in Southeast Asia.

But in 2014, in anticipation of possible conflict and a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, the US persuaded then-president Benigno Aquino III to sign the 10-year Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), which allowed US troops and weapons to be positioned in our country, and US troops to be present on a “rotational system” within five Philippine military bases. The deal includes a provision for automatic continuation. The first five bases were then agreed on. In 2023, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. expanded the EDCA, approving four additional bases. There is no political or economic benefit to the Philippines from such a deadly, dangerous alliance with the US.

These agreements can bring war to the Philippines in any conflict between the US and its allies in conflict with China over Taiwan. The US bases inside Philippine bases are prime targets for missile strikes from Chinese ships, submarines and the illegal Chinese bases built on the Philippine atolls and reefs.

Capabilities, infrastructure

The Chinese have military capabilities on Panganiban (Mischief) Reef. It was seized by China in 1995 and transformed into a large air and naval base with a 3-kilometer military-grade runway, hangars and radar systems. Similar military infrastructure are found on Kagitingan (Fiery Cross) Reef and Zamora (Subi) Reef, less than 26 km from the Philippine-occupied Pag-asa Island. Smaller military installations are built on other artificial islands, as if surrounding the Philippines with deadly attack capability.

In fact, their real targets are US forces based in those nine bases: Antonio Bautista Air Base in Palawan; Basa Air Base in Pampanga; Mactan-Benito Ebuen Air Base in Cebu; Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija; Lumbia Air Base in Cagayan de Oro; Camilo Osias Naval Base in Santa Ana and Lal-lo Airport in Lal-lo, both in Cagayan; Camp Melchor dela Cruz in Gamu, Isabela; and Balabac Island, on Palawan’s southwestern tip.

Those in Cagayan and Isabela are significant due to their proximity to Taiwan, while those in Palawan face the South China Sea. Under the Visiting Forces Agreement, US ships and aircraft can visit Subic Bay for resupply, rest and recreation. The Philippine Navy has established its own naval operating base near the former shipbuilding yard.

The consequences of the buildup of US military forces will directly affect Filipinos because the nine bases are scattered across the country. They are bases for mid-range missile systems, specifically the Typhon and Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System launchers, High-Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, and various equipment for humanitarian aid and disaster relief. However, we have seen little disaster relief from the US military after our recent floods and typhoons.

These weapons and bases are prime targets for possible Chinese drone and missile attacks and aerial bombings in any conflict. The moral issue that has to be answered by Filipinos today: is it right they are in the line of fire like helpless pawns on a chessboard in a likely global conflict not of their own making?

The more immediate challenge to Filipinos from the expanding presence of the US military bases is the growing business of human trafficking and the sexual exploitation of Filipino women and children, and the spread of HIV-AIDS. These are the very same moral and social challenges the Philippines endured in the sex towns of Angeles and Olongapo cities during the long presence of US personnel in the Clark and Subic Bay bases until 1992. There are 750,000 Americans in the Philippines as of 2025; many of them are retired Filipino Americans and about 1,000 US servicemen. During military exercises, this number rises to about 11,000.

Hopefully, the Filipino people will be reminded of past mistakes and the possible threat of war in the future, brought upon them by their political leaders and US military presence in the country. China’s claims of ownership of most of the South China Sea were rejected by the arbitral tribunal under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea in 2016. The court said China’s claims violated the Philippines’ sovereign rights, but Beijing has rejected this.

There have been provocative actions against Philippine Coast Guard ships. Besides containing the US military, China is likely planning to exploit the vast mineral and oil deposits in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone. The US has a policy of “strategic ambiguity” about its reaction if China invades Taiwan. It claims Beijing will have that military capability by 2027. US President Donald Trump said recently that his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping had reassured him that there would be no invasion during his presidency.

This could be wishful thinking, as no one understands the secret plans and ambitions of China, and seizing Taiwan is Xi’s stated policy and legacy. Filipinos, partnered with the US, will be right in the crosshairs of a global conflict with America’s enemies, as it was in World War II. All that is needed to remove the US military presence in the Philippines is a goodbye letter from the Philippine government to Washington. Would it ever have the courage to do that and save the country from another possible war? That remains to be seen.