US-Philippines in biggest drills ever aimed at China

By Richard Javad Heydarian

China and the United States are flexing their muscles in the Western Pacific as the New Cold War appears to be entering a new volatile stage.

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) recently conducted a three-day drill around Taiwan to underscore Beijing’s readiness to pursue “re-unification” with the self-governing island. According to Taiwan’s Defense Ministry, as many as 26 Chinese fighter jets and nine warships surrounded the island on April 11.

Chinese forces “organized military aircraft this morning [April 11] and crossed the median line from the north, the center and the south,” Taipei said, referring to the de facto border between the two sides in the hotly-contested Taiwan Straits.

The massive wargames came shortly after Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen met with US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California last week. Last August, China also flexed its military muscles in response to then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the self-ruling island that Beijing considers a renegade province.

At the same time, the US started on April 11 its largest-ever joint military exercises with the Philippines. As many as 12,200 US military personnel, 5,400 Filipino soldiers and 111 Australian soldiers took part in unprecedented exercises near the hotly disputed South China Sea.

The wargames were initially planned to be held closer to Taiwan in the northwestern Philippine province of Ilocos Norte but vocal opposition from Senator Maria Imelda “Imee” Marcos, the sister of incumbent President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, persuaded military planners to pivot towards the South China Sea instead.

“We are not provoking anybody by simply exercising,” Colonel Michael Logico, spokesman for the Armed Forces of the Philippines for the 2023 Balikatan (shoulder-to-shoulder) exercises told reporters ahead of the start of massive wargames.

“This is actually a form of deterrence. Deterrence is when we are discouraging other parties from invading us,” he added, pushing back against claims that the wargames are too provocative vis-à-vis China. The drills are scheduled to run through April 28.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Blinken and US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin met their Filipino counterparts, Secretary of Foreign Affairs Enrique Manalo and Senior Undersecretary and Officer in Charge (OIC) of National Defense Carlito Galvez, in Washington this week.

It marked the first 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue between the two mutual defense treaty allies following six years of turbulent relations under the pro-Beijing Rodrigo Duterte presidency (2016-2022).

At the meeting, the two sides underscored their commitment to upgrade the alliance for a new era of military cooperation, with a particular focus on China’s expanding footprint in adjacent waters, from the Taiwan Straits to the South China Sea.

Since taking office last year, Marcos Jr has helped to trigger a major strategic realignment in Asia. While adopting his predecessor’s friendly rhetoric towards China, he has steadily pivoted back to traditional allies, placing the Philippines at the heart of the Pentagon’s “integrated deterrence” strategy in the Indo-Pacific.

Earlier this month, Marcos Jr greenlighted the addition of four prized bases under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), which gives US troops rotational access and allows for the prepositioning of weapons systems, aircraft and vessels all across the Southeast Asian nation.

In addition to two predesignated bases close to the South China Sea, namely in Basa and Bautista airbases, Marcos Jr has also opened to US forces Balabac Island in the southwestern island of Palawan as well as the northern bases of Camilo Osias Naval Base in Sta Ana town, Lal-lo Airport in Lal-lo town (Cagayan province) and Camp Melchor dela Cruz in Gamu town (Isabela province).

As a result, the US will now enjoy its most extensive access to Philippine bases since the departure of its permanent military facilities in the early 1990s.

Amid mounting concerns of possible Philippine involvement in a kinetic Taiwan crisis, Marcos Jr has insisted that he will not allow “our bases to be used for any offensive action” by the US.

Nevertheless, there is reason to believe that the Southeast Asian nation is preparing for a potential war in neighboring Taiwan. Against that backdrop, the US and Philippines have kickstarted their largest-ever wargames since the end of the previous Cold War, featuring 17,000 troops from multiple allied nations.

But it is the type of drills and weapons used in them that will likely put Beijing on notice. Aside from humanitarian and disaster relief operations (HADR), the exercises will not only feature state-of-the-art American warships, fighter jets, High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) rocket launchers and anti-tank Javelins but also for the first time Patriot missile systems.

The ultimate aim of the exercises is to enhance interoperability as well as the Philippines’ ability to develop modern warfare capabilities by drawing on, inter alia, Ukraine’s Western-backed troops’ successes to date against the far larger Russian army.

Moreover, the Balikatan exercises will also feature the simulation of a potential war with China, with US and allied troops set to sink a 200-foot (61-meter) target vessel near the disputed Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea.

The allies will also engage in a coordinated airstrike and artillery bombardment in the strongest display yet of their collective firepower.

“We will hit [the vessel] with all the weapons systems that we have, both ground, navy and air,” Logico, spokesman for Balikatan, said.

According to the US Embassy in Manila, the wargames will “test the allies’ capabilities in combined arms live-fire, information and intelligence sharing, communications between maneuver units, logistics operations, amphibious operations.”

Meanwhile, the Marcos Jr administration is also seeking to extract maximum benefits from its burgeoning alliance with the US while making sure the expanded EDCA deal doesn’t overexpose his country to China’s threat.

In a speech this week at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank in Washington, DC, Philippine Foreign Secretary Manalo emphasized, “There will have to be discussions on the terms of reference, the type of activities and I think these all have to be agreed on. So at this stage, it’s really difficult to answer questions like that, it will depend on how discussions go on.”

He welcomed the 2+2 ministerial meeting this week as an opportunity to iron out the details of the expanded EDCA deal as well as upgrade the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) for the 21st century. In response, the US defense chief wasted no time in reassuring America’s Southeast Asian allies.

“We reaffirmed today that our Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) [with the Philippines] remains the bedrock of our cooperation,” US Secretary of Defense Austin said during a joint press briefing following the 2+2 ministerial dialogue in Washington, DC.

Following their extensive discussions, the two sides underscored their broad range of shared concerns including over Ukraine as well as “maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait as an indispensable element of global security and prosperity.”

To usher in a new era of bilateral cooperation, they also vowed to “[s]trengthen bilateral planning and interoperability to ensure readiness to respond to a range of crises and scenarios, through the conduct of high impact and high-value joint exercises, trainings and other activities as well as by fast-tracking ongoing discussions on a new US-Philippines Bilateral Defense Guidelines.”

It’s not clear whether the two sides agreed on the final contours of the EDCA deal, including in regard to the number of US troops who will have rotational access to predesignated bases.

But the US is allocating $100 million “toward infrastructure investments at the existing five EDCA sites and to support swift operationalization of the four new sites” as well as $100 million worth of foreign military aid to the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

The two sides also vowed to press ahead with joint patrols in the South China Sea and operationalize big-ticket defense deals, including a pending $2 billion package including sophisticated missile systems and fighter jets.

Follow Richard Javad Heydarian on Twitter at @Richeydarian