In the disputed South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait, where Washington has repeatedly warned China over its increasingly aggressive actions, American and Filipino forces on Tuesday launched their largest combat drills in decades, highlighted by a rocket barrage that sank a ship.
More than 17,600 military personnel will participate in the annual exercises by the longtime treaty allies, known as Balikatan (Tagalog for “shoulder-to-shoulder”), which will last until April 28. As the Biden administration fortifies an arc of alliances to better counter China, including in a potential confrontation over Taiwan, an island democracy that Beijing claims as its own, it will be the latest display of American firepower in Asia.
This is consistent with the Philippines’ efforts under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to defend its territorial interests in the South China Sea, which China claims almost entirely. These efforts included stepping up joint military drills with the U.S. and agreeing in 2014 to allow rotating groups of American forces to stay in additional Philippine military camps.
U.S. Marine Maj. Gen. Eric Austin said, “The relationships we have and the relationships we build into these exercises will make us faster to respond to conflict, crisis, humanitarian assistance, and disaster relief.”
The exercises are the largest since Balikatan began three decades ago and involve approximately 12,200 U.S. military personnel, 5,400 Filipino forces, and 111 Australian counterparts. According to U.S. and Philippine military officials, the exercises will display American warships, fighter jets, Patriot missiles, HIMARS rocket launchers, and anti-tank Javelins.
According to Col. Michael Logico, a Philippine spokesman for Balikatan, on April 26 U.S. and Filipino forces will sink a target ship in a live-fire drill for the first time in Philippine territorial waters off the western province of Zambales through a coordinated inland and coastal artillery bombardment and airstrike.
According to Logico, “We have to fire at a target that is closer to what we would expect in an actual threat, which is an intrusion coming from an enemy by sea.” “We are proving that we are prepared for battle.”
When asked if Marcos expressed any concern that Beijing might become enraged by the rocket launch near the busy waterway that China considers to be its territory, Logico replied that it was not brought up during the briefing. Marcos stated that he would like to see the live-fire drill.
The exercises will involve retaking an island that enemy forces have taken control of in the western province of Palawan, which faces the South China Sea, according to Logico.
The exercises, according to Philippine military officials, were not directed at any specific nation but rather at strengthening the nation’s coastal defense and disaster response capabilities.
These real-world situations will “test the allies’ abilities in combined arms live-fire, information and intelligence sharing, communications between maneuver units, logistics operations, and amphibious operations,” according to the U.S. Embassy in Manila.
The Philippine foreign and defense secretaries will meet with their American counterparts in Washington on Tuesday to discuss the American military presence and proposed joint naval patrols, which is a sign of deepening defense cooperation, according to officials.
The long-running territorial disputes between China, the Philippines, and four other governments, as well as Beijing’s intention to annex Taiwan, using force if necessary, have put Washington and Beijing on a collision course.
China issued a warning last week about the growing American military presence in the area. It “would only result in more tensions and less peace and stability in the region,” according to Mao Ning, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, during a routine news briefing in Beijing.
The Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen met with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy last week in California, which infuriated Beijing. As a result, Beijing conducted three days of combat drills simulating the sealing off of Taiwan, which ended the day after the Philippines’ Balikatan exercises began.
Monday saw the deployment of the USS Milius, a guided-missile destroyer, within 12 nautical miles of Mischief Reef, a coral outcrop claimed by Manila that China had taken over in the mid-1990s and turned into one of seven missile-protected island bases in the tensely disputed Spratlys archipelago in the South China Sea. Such freedom of navigation operations have been carried out by the U.S. military for years in an effort to counter China’s broad territorial claims.
The 7th Fleet stated, “The United States will continue to defend the rights and freedoms of the sea guaranteed to all as long as some countries continue to claim and assert limits on rights that exceed their authority under international law.”
