Duterte as soon as declared it was “time to say goodbye” to Washington and cultivated nearer relations with China. Marcos, in contrast, has constructed up a community of worldwide safety allies to assist defend in opposition to Chinese language naval aggression in disputed waters and plans to go to Washington subsequent month for the primary joint summit with U.S. and Japanese leaders.
Blinken’s go to — coming in the course of an extended swing by Europe, Asia and the Center East — was the most recent in an intense parade of high-level U.S. visits to Manila. Simply final week, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo got here to the Philippine capital to announce plans to speculate $1 billion within the nation’s tech sector, a part of an ongoing U.S. effort to diversify the worldwide provide of semiconductors and cut back reliance on Chinese language manufacturing.
“The alliance has by no means been stronger,” Blinken instructed reporters in Manila, talking alongside Philippine Overseas Secretary Enrique Manalo. “We’ve got a shared concern about [China’s] actions to threaten our widespread imaginative and prescient for a free, open Indo-Pacific.”
Blinken declared that the USA has “an ironclad dedication” to a mutual protection treaty with the Philippines that extends to any armed assault on Philippine armed forces and public vessels. “We have been very clear about that,” he mentioned.
He mentioned that not one of the U.S. efforts to construct alliances within the area “are directed in opposition to anybody or something, they’re in service of one thing. They’re there for making an attempt to appreciate the constructive imaginative and prescient that all the international locations concerned share of a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
Manalo instructed reporters that the U.S.-Philippine relationship has “been on hyperdrive over the previous yr or so,” declaring that his nation is a “formidable ally for the USA.”
China lays declare to a lot of the South China Sea, regardless of conflicting claims by numerous international locations. The Philippine declare is bolstered by a ruling in its favor by the Everlasting Courtroom of Arbitration in The Hague, which China doesn’t acknowledge. Beijing has claimed that Washington is behind the Philippine pushback, accusing the 2 of fueling pressure at sea.
During the last yr, the island nation has extensively documented how its vessels have come beneath excessive harassment by China, corresponding to going through collisions and water cannons. These gray-zone ways fall simply in need of an armed assault, which may set off Washington’s obligations to defend the Philippines beneath the mutual protection treaty.
Relations between the USA and Philippines had been strained beneath Duterte, who publicly “realigned” himself with China. However Marcos has sought worldwide help within the South China Sea, and expanded U.S. entry to Philippine army bases.
Since 2022, the Philippines has launched into a spree of recent protection agreements, signing offers with the European Union, India and Britain. Japan, Canada and France are additionally taking a look at signing army agreements with the Philippines, in accordance with their embassies.
