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FORMER enemies during the Second World War, the Philippines and Japan, have signed a defense agreement that could pave the way for Japanese forces holding joint military exercises in the Philippines.
The Reciprocal Access Agreement still needs to be ratified by the Philippine Senate and Japanese Diet, but the tense political climate in the Indo-Pacific almost guarantees its passage.
The pact was crafted primarily to counter China's growing aggressiveness in asserting its territorial claims in the waters that make up the “First Island Chain,” which extends from the East China Sea to the South China Sea.
Manila has been fending off Chinese incursions in the West Philippine Sea, while Tokyo is locked in a long-standing dispute with Beijing over the Senkaku Islands, which lie between Taiwan and Okinawa.
The agreement will lay down the “procedures for the cooperative activities that are conducted by forces of Japan and the Philippines while the force of one country is visiting the other country and defines a legal status of the visiting force.”
It will “facilitate the implementation of cooperative activities, such as joint exercises and disaster relief between Japan and the Philippines, and improve interoperability between the forces of the two countries.”
Philippine troops will also have access to combat training in Japan.
The pact, however, is not as comprehensive as the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement between the Philippines and the United States, which allows the rotational stationing of American troops in selected Philippine military sites.
In 1951, the Philippines signed a mutual defense treaty with the US that requires both nations to support each other if either comes under attack.
The treaty was in response to the Cold War paranoia over Southeast Asian nations falling like dominoes in the face of a communist onslaught. As an integral part of the Philippines' security shield, the US built huge military facilities in Subic and Clark.
Early in the 1990s, the US pulled out of the two bases after the Philippines decided not to renew their leases. The defense treaty became no more than a conduit for propping up the frail Philippine military.
The country regained its strategic value when the Obama administration declared the US “pivot” to the Asia-Pacific, a geopolitical shift away from Europe and the Middle East, and toward East Asia.
America needed to enlarge its military presence in the new theater of confrontation with China, and the Philippines was the perfect location for a forward outpost.
Washington has been stepping up not only military aid to Manila, but economic and trade support as well.
The administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., however, felt that with the Chinese threat continuing to escalate, the country needed to seek security partnerships beyond the US. Manila already has security agreements with Japan and Australia, and is exploring similar arrangements with France and other European nations.
Backlash
Some observers caution against the backlash from an emerging web of security set-ups in the Indo-Pacific. Kevin Chen, a research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, noted in a Time online article last April: “Despite growing ties, US alliances in the Indo-Pacific do not have the level of institutionalization that they have with their NATO allies, such as command structures or plans for specific scenarios.”
The alliances could also make China feel it is being fenced in. Evan Resnick, a senior associate fellow at Rajaratnam, warns in the same article that if China “feels like it's being rigged in by this increasingly strong sense of containment… it's gonna get really upset and scared. That could just as easily trigger a war.”
Beijing may already be in that agitated state. It has stationed its coast guard's “monster ship” within sight of the grounded Navy ship Sierra Madre in Ayungin Shoal. And Chinese ships were again swarming in the West Philippine Sea.
We came close to invoking our defense pact with the US when a Filipino sailor was injured after the Chinese coast guard assaulted a resupply mission to the Sierra Madre last month.
Flashpoints in the West Philippine Sea like Ayungin and Bajo de Masinloc could give China the excuse to test the mettle of such alliances.
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