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Alliances, by their very nature, are driven by threats. The U.S.-Philippine alliance, which has grown closer as China’s power has increased, is no exception. That was further confirmed on Thursday, when the United States announced it had secured access to additional military bases in the Philippines. And when U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping and other leaders in Beijing in the coming days, the Philippines and its neighbors will be looking to see whether Blinken’s visit can stop U.S.-China relations from further backsliding and how that might impact their futures. However, the alliance between Washington and Manila should be decoupled from calculations around China, even if Blinken’s visit successfully cools tensions.
The meeting is important for the Philippines, given both its unique position as a long-standing ally of the United States and its deep economic ties with China. In the past decade, the Philippines’ foreign policy preferences have oscillated between the two powers.
In 2012, under president Benigno Aquino III, the Philippines lodged an arbitration case against China in the West Philippine Sea in response to Beijing’s historical claims—based on the so-called nine-dash line—on the entirety of the South China Sea. The arbitration case was also the Philippines’ way of preventing China from further occupying and building artificial features within Manila’s exclusive economic zone.
By the time the arbitral award was handed down in 2016, Aquino’s successor, Rodrigo Duterte, was pursuing an “independent foreign policy” that meant turning away from Washington and pivoting toward Beijing. Duterte was keen on challenging the validity of the U.S.-Philippine alliance, which is anchored in several major agreements. His insistence on abrogating one of them, the Visiting Forces Agreement, brought the alliance to the verge of collapse before Duterte changed course during the coronavirus pandemic.
The restoration of the alliance paved the way for an even closer relationship, as evidenced by the 2021 reaffirmation of the commitment to a “partnership of sovereign equals” in the Bilateral Strategic Dialogue (BSD)—an annual event that serves as the main platform for the allies to discuss cross-cutting issues such as defense and trade. The 2021 BSD also created the Maritime Dialogue for combating the rising number of gray zone threats, including forced technology transfers, debt dependency, and the deployment of Chinese maritime militia to block commercial Filipino fishing operations from their usual grounds.
After his election in May, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. adopted a foreign policy based on being “a friend to all and an enemy to none.” By the close of 2022, not only had Washington earmarked $100 million in foreign military financing to the Philippines but also Vice President Kamala Harris had visited the country to reiterate the importance of the alliance. The most recent BSD in January was echoed by a visit from the USS Nimitz as part of the American commitment to uphold freedom of passage in the South China Sea—a critical waterway for the global flow of trade and goods.
The alliance, Therefore, is alive and well. But ever-closer ties between the Philippines and the United States are oftentimes a reaction to China’s assertive moves in the region. While initiatives to deepen security cooperation are welcome, the allies will need to go beyond military and defense issues for the bilateral relationship to flourish. Military concerns spill over to the civilian domain, and oftentimes the consequences to society fly under the radar of official discussions.
Modernization efforts of the Armed Forces of the Philippines are important and fundamental to national security. The annual, joint, U.S.-Philippine Balikatan exercises—which most recently included amphibious operations, live-fire training, air defense operations, and disaster relief missions—complement these efforts. Moreover, the takeover of a shipyard near the former U.S. naval base at Subic Bay by a U.S.-based equity firm will provide the Philippine Navy with a berthing facility and a strategic location facing the South China Sea. Finally, the Russian helicopter deal that failed after the invasion of Ukraine was salvaged when the United States offered to upgrade at least twelve choppers using foreign military financing—which will help the Philippines speed up its modernization process by acquiring military hardware.
But focusing on acquisitions alone will not cut it, and pursuing military modernization within the framework of the U.S. alliance will require at least three changes. First, security sector reform must be the driving force of military modernization. Norms on accountability, effectiveness, and respect for human rights and the rule of law need to be internalized by the security sector before they can transform the structures responsible for the management, provision, and oversight of security. The fact that the two sides have only reached an “agreement to designate” four new bases (without actually naming them) is indicative that the security sector remains mired in red tape. The new BSD committed the country to develop a promising roadmap to help the security sector improve, but the challenge is to ensure that military modernization is guided and complemented by a corresponding capacity-building of the civilian bureaucracy within the defense domain.
Another way to deepen the U.S.-Philippine alliance is to keep so-called softer security concerns in the crosshairs: climate, marine resources, coastal management, trafficking of natural resources, and illegal fishing, among others. Hard security issues oftentimes take precedence over soft issues, despite the latter’s importance to the Philippines’ national security.
Finally, the smooth working of the alliance depends on consistent dialogues. Informal networks in particular are what make the alliance a well-oiled machine. These platforms help build professional communities, exchange best practices, establish common ground, and build resilience. Meanwhile, professional networks facilitate shared understandings and threat perceptions that strengthen the alliance.
The Philippines has a stake in a constructive meeting between Blinken and Chinese leaders. Blinken’s upcoming visit to Beijing will certainly help improve tensions between the two superpowers. But regardless of the meeting’s outcome, strengthening the U.S.-Philippine alliance for its own sake will prove advantageous not only for the two sides but also for regional security.
