Dealing with China’s rise

April 15, 2024

MANILA – From a broader perspective, the tensions in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) are only secondarily due to our maritime territorial disputes with China. These tensions are primarily an offshoot of the worsening great power rivalry between the United States and China. That rivalry encompasses multiple issues and has its own dynamics. As a small nation caught in the middle of this complex conflict, we need to keep a firm view of our long-term interests, and where they lie at different points in time. We must be ready to defend these interests at all times, even as we must take care not to cause any provocation that may be exploited by either of the two major parties in this conflict.

This requires a balancing act that is delicate and uniquely ours to work out. We have been America’s treaty ally in this part of the world since 1951, a consequence of having been its former colony. Japan invaded the Philippines at the start of World War II mainly because of the US military bases in the country. Six years after the end of that war, America made a commitment under the US-RP Mutual Defense Treaty of 1951 to defend the Philippines against any future external aggression.

But more than this treaty, it is the “special relationship” between the two countries that, for better or worse, has drawn the Philippines closer than any country in the Asean into the orbit of American geostrategic power. The US has always regarded the Philippines as its principal outpost in Southeast Asia. In turn, our nation’s leaders have acknowledged this by finding ways to accommodate the presence of US forces in the country even after the expiration of the US-RP Military Bases Agreement in 1991. Today, we remain not only the