THE PHILIPPINE and Australian armies held defense drills on Monday aimed at bolstering interoperability between the two nations amid shared security concerns over China’s growing assertiveness in the South China Sea.
About 171 Philippine troops and 90 Australian soldiers participated in exercises held in Capiz province in central Visayas. The drills covered coastal defense, missile survivability and mortar and drone operations, according to the Philippine Army.
The drills are part of the broader Exercise Kasangga — Filipino for ally — traditionally held on Luzon island, which faces the South China Sea to the west and the volatile Taiwan Strait to the north.
“Conducting the said exercise outside of the traditional training areas in Luzon sends a clear message about the army’s commitment to strengthen its operations in areas of strategic importance to regional stability,” the Philippine Army said in a statement.
Australia has been one of the Philippines’ closest allies in the eastern hemisphere, and in 2007, the two countries forged a visiting forces agreement allowing their troops to hold joint exercises in each other’s territories. The pact came into force in 2012.
The Philippines has sought to expand its security ties beyond its traditional ally, the US, engaging with other western countries and regional allies as it faces an increasingly assertive China over disputed features in the South China Sea.
Beijing claims almost all of the strategic waterway via a U-shaped, 1940s nine-dash line map that overlaps with the exclusive waters of the Philippines, resulting in clashes at disputed maritime features, as both the countries uphold their claims in the marine-rich water.
‘COERCIVE ACTIONS’Meanwhile, the US on Monday stood by the Philippines and emphasized their Mutual Defense Treaty after vessels from China and the Philippines clashed amid heightened tensions in the South China Sea.
US State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott condemned China’s “ramming and water cannoning” of a Philippines vessel and said Washington stood with its ally “as they confront China’s dangerous actions which undermine regional stability.”
In a statement, Mr. Pigott reaffirmed that Article IV of the 1951 US-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty “extends to armed attacks on Philippine armed forces, public vessels or aircraft — including those of its coast guard — anywhere in the South China Sea.”
Earlier, China’s Foreign Ministry urged Manila not to challenge Beijing’s efforts to “safeguard its territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests” after Sunday’s incident in the Spratly Islands, in which the Philippines said China deployed water cannon and rammed a Filipino vessel.
China and the Philippines have traded accusations over the confrontation near Sandy Cay, a coral reef within the Spratly Islands.
The two nations have confronted each other repeatedly in recent years in the South China Sea, a strategic trade route that facilitates more than $3 trillion in annual ship-borne commerce, and which China claims most of.
Tensions have heightened recently and Lin Jian, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, told a press briefing the Philippines should immediately stop “violations and provocations.”
The State Department said: “China’s sweeping territorial and maritime claims in the South China Sea and its increasingly coercive actions to advance them at the expense of its neighbors continue to undermine regional stability and fly in the face of its prior commitments to resolve disputes peacefully.”
Last year, during the former Biden administration, two senior Republican US senators called for a list of options developed by the Pentagon and State Department to support the Philippines against Beijing in the South China Sea, saying that limiting responses to verbal assurances of the applicability of Article IV undermines the credibility and value of these commitments. — Kenneth Christiane L. Basilio with Reuters