Comparative Connections A Triannual E-Journal on East Asian Bilateral Relations US-Southeast Asia Relations: Philippines – An Exemplar of the US Rebalance Sheldon Simon Arizona State University The Philippines under President Benigno Aquino III has linked its military modernization and overall external defense to the US rebalance. Washington has raised its annual military assistance by two-thirds to $50 million and is providing surplus military equipment. To further cement the relationship, Philippine and US defense officials announced that the two countries would negotiate a new “framework agreement” under the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty providing for greater access by US forces to Philippine bases and the positioning of equipment at these facilities. Washington is also stepping up participation in ASEAN-based security organizations, sending forces in June to an 18-nation ASEAN Defense Ministers Plus exercise covering military medicine and humanitarian assistance in Brunei. A July visit to Washington by Vietnam’s President Truong Tan Sang resulted in a US-Vietnam Comprehensive Partnership, actually seen as a step below the Strategic Partnerships Hanoi has negotiated with several other countries. Myanmar’s president came to Washington in May, the first visit by the country’s head of state since 1966. An economic agreement was the chief deliverable. While President Obama praised Myanmar’s democratic progress, he also expressed concern about increased sectarian violence that the government seems unable (or unwilling) to bring under control. The rebalance and the Philippines While the Obama administration’s foreign and defense policies’ rebalance to Asia is portrayed as a “whole of government” endeavor, involving civilian as well as security agencies, its military components have received the most attention, especially in Southeast Asia. China’s maritime claims in the South China Sea have led the ASEAN states to welcome an enhanced US military presence, stepped up joint exercises, and the provision of more military equipment to Southeast Asian allies and partners. Indicative of this regional welcome for an enhanced US military presence was a June statement by Malaysian Navy Chief Adm. Abdul Aziz Jaafar stating that the presence of the US Navy in Southeast Asia will have a positive impact on regional security and that he looks forward to more military exchanges. Other examples of a growing US military profile in Southeast Asia include Singapore’s offer to host up to four littoral combat ships for exercises with ASEAN navies; the rotational presence of up to 2,500 US Marines and an unspecified number of Air Force combat jets in northern and western Australia; the planned transfer of six destroyers from Europe to the Pacific; and maritime patrol aircraft and UAVs for rotational deployments in Singapore and Thailand as cited by the July 15 edition of Defense News. As for concerns that the significant reduction incurred by the US defense budget beginning in 2013 resulting from the wind down of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the Congressional sequestration, US Pacific Command (USPACOM) US-Southeast Asia Relations September 2013 Commander Adm. Samuel Locklear at the annual Singapore Shangri-La Dialogue in June averred: “Even under the most severe budgetary predictions, the US defense will still make up 40 percent of all defense spending in the world.” Activities that are scheduled to grow include military exercises with allies and partners. The Southeast Asian state that may arguably be considered the focal point of the US rebalance is the Philippines. A defense treaty ally from 1951, but with one of the weakest navies and air forces in the region, the Aquino government has linked its own program for territorial defense to the US rebalance. Manila has acquired two old Hamilton-class ex-US Coast Guard cutters that have become flagships for the navy and will also receive six river patrol boats. It is purchasing 12 FA-50 fighter jets from South Korea to initiate the rebuilding of the Philippine Air Force. The Philippine military’s shopping list also includes radar systems, anti-submarine helicopters, amphibious assault vehicles, and surface-to-air missiles. Washington also agreed in late July to raise its military assistance to the Philippines by two- thirds from $30 million to $50 million. Since 2002, the US has provided the Philippines with $312 million in military aid as well as surplus equipment such as the two Hamilton-class cutters. In fact, President Benigno Aquino has laid out a $1.82 billion multi-year military modernization program emphasizing the navy. Washington has been approached with the shopping list described in the preceding paragraph. In discussions with the US, these acquisitions will be designed to improve maritime domain awareness in what the Philippines has named the West Philippine Sea. In addition to building its own capabilities, Manila is also increasingly relying on the US Seventh Fleet. On July 31, Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario stated that US Navy surveillance aircraft have been providing “crucial intelligence on Chinese military activities” in disputed areas of the South China Sea for the past several years. Also in July and August, Philippine and US defense officials announced that upcoming negotiations would provide for greater access by the US military to Philippine bases through a new “framework agreement” that would be “nested” under the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty, therefore not requiring any additional action by the Philippine Congress. Both sides also affirmed that no new agreement would provide for either a permanent US military presence or the basing of US combat aircraft, which is prohibited under the Philippine constitution. The proposed framework agreement would authorize the positioning of US equipment and the rotation of more US personnel for longer periods of time than currently allowed on Philippine military bases. During a visit back to the Philippines in early July, Manila’s ambassador to Washington praised the prospect of greater US troop access to the Philippines as paving the way for more joint military training and modernization for the Philippine armed forces. Parallel to the US rebalance for the Philippines is the establishment of a strategic partnership with Japan on July 27. With the beginning of Prime Minister Abe’s second term, maritime security cooperation has become a main pillar in Japan-Philippine strategic cooperation. Japan’s approach has been capacity building of the Philippine Coast Guard by providing 10 patrol boats through a loan agreement. As Manila’s only strategic partners, President Aquino has offered access for the US and Japan to Subic Bay Naval Base, the former US naval facility facing the South China Sea. Moreover, the Philippine government has stated that it supports a rearmed US-Southeast Asia Relations September 2013 Japan to balance China in the Asia-Pacific even if Tokyo amends its pacifist constitution. For Japan, maritime assistance to the Philippines may be a way of diverting some of China’s naval assets away from the East China Sea. As Japan’s defense minister put it in a June visit to the Philippines, the two countries would cooperate “in terms of the defense of remote islands.” More broadly, Prime Minister Abe in his July 27 press conference stated: “I intend to attach particular importance to our relationship with ASEAN.” ASEAN members Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam, and the Philippines are all involved in overlapping maritime claims in the South China Sea. President Aquino’s offer of the use of Philippine bases to the US and Japan has elicited condemnation from Philippine nationalist and leftist commentators as an attack on the country’s sovereignty. In late June, Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile stated that the bases offer would be a violation of the 1999 Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) which provided only for temporary deployments of US soldiers. The new arrangement seems to allow them to stay in the Philippines for an unlimited period. Philippine Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin replied to this concern by differentiating the situation of US forces and potentially those from Japan. The latter, he explained, could only have access to Philippine facilities after Tokyo and Manila negotiate a separate VFA. However, US forces, according to Gazmin, would be able to preposition aircraft to be used in exercises with the Philippines to save on turnaround time and fuel instead of having to bring them from bases in Hawaii, Guam, or Okinawa. Gazmin went on to assure Filipinos that the United States and various allies would not be permitted to build their own bases in the Philippines. Their forces would be located on Philippine facilities. Former Philippine presidential spokesman Ricardo Saludo in the July 13 issue of The Manila Times Online warned that the permanent deployment of US and Japanese forces in the country would make China add these facilities to its ballistic missile targets, thus bringing the Philippines closer to war with the PRC. At the very least, Saludo claimed, China would increase its own naval deployments in the South China Sea to balance any US and possibly Japanese permanent air and naval presence in the Philippines. In August, the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs – in hopes of dampening the controversy over an enhanced US military presence through the VFA – stated that the negotiations under way would simply be an executive agreement under existing defense pacts and within the bounds of the Philippine constitution. This statement was in response to a claim by Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago that any base access agreement would require Senate concurrence. So, the traditional disagreement continues between those nationalists and leftists who view any enhanced US military role in Philippine defense to be a retrogression toward the country’s colonial history vs. the mainstream Philippine leadership who believe that Washington can help the Philippines build its own defense capacity and in an extreme security confrontation with China could be called upon for protection under the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty.