US secures deal on Philippines bases to complete arc

• The agreement partially undoes the US’s decision to leave their former colony.
• Philippines border two of the major flashpoints, Taiwan and the South China Sea.
• The US hasn’t said where the new bases are but three of them could be on Luzon.

Four more military outposts in the Philippines have been granted to the US, giving it a prime location from which to observe Chinese activity in the South China Sea and near Taiwan.

The agreement closes a vacuum in the US alliance network that stretches from South Korea and Japan in the north to Australia in the south.

The Philippines, which border two of the major possible flashpoints, Taiwan and the South China Sea, had been the missing piece.

The agreement is a significant one since it partially undoes the US’s decision to leave their former colony more than 30 years ago.

“There is no contingency in the South China Sea that does not require access to the Philippines,” says Gregory B Poling, director of the Southeast Asia program at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

“The US is not looking for permanent bases. It’s about places, not bases.”

The US already had limited access to five sites under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) – the new additions and expanded access, according to a statement from Washington, will “allow more rapid support for humanitarian and climate-related disasters in the Philippines, and respond to other shared challenges”, likely a veiled reference to countering China in the region.

The statement came after US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met Philippine President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr in Manila on Thursday.

The US hasn’t said where the new bases are but three of them could be on Luzon, an island on the northern edge of the Philippines, the only large piece of land close to Taiwan – if you don’t count China.

China criticized the agreement, saying “US actions escalate regional tension and undermine regional peace and stability”.

“The United States, out of its self interests and zero-sum game mentality, continues to step up military posture in this region,” its embassy said in a statement.

Today, rather than sites where a big number of troops will be stationed, the US is looking for access to locations where “light and flexible” operations involving supplies and surveillance can be undertaken as and when needed.

In other words, this is not the 1980s again, when the Philippines was the location of two of the biggest US military facilities in Asia, at Clark Field and nearby Subic Bay, and 15,000 US personnel.

The Philippine government finally declared an end in 1991. Sending the former colonial rulers home would strengthen democracy and independence in the Philippines, which had just defeated the despised dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos.

The Cold War was coming to an end, the Vietnam War was long past, and China was still a military underdog. The Americans returned home in 1992, or at least the most of them did.

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