U.S. seeks military access in Philippine eastern seaboard

 

The U.S. military has access to nine outposts in the Philippines, seven of which are located on Luzon island and Palawan island.(Nikkei montage/Source photo by U.S. Navy/Getty Images)

NEW YORK -- The U.S. and the Philippines have begun discussions to expand America's military footprint in the eastern seaboard of the island nation, three people familiar with the matter told Nikkei.

The discussion around additional U.S. sites is the latest reaction to China's aggressive foreign policy across the Indo-Pacific region. China is pushing its military operations beyond the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has been keen to revive the two countries' 70-year-old alliance since he took office in June last year. Ties between the two were mostly frosty under former President Rodrigo Duterte.

"Gen. Brawner and I may make recommendations to our senior leaders for the consideration of additional sites but there is still work to do there before we get to that answer," Adm. John Aquilino, commander of the Indo-Pacific Command, said at a press conference on Sept. 14, referring to the chief of the Philippine Armed Forces Romeo Brawner.

The U.S. military has access to nine outposts in the Philippines, seven of which are located on Luzon island and Palawan island.

The allies may choose new sites in other areas, the sources said, including on the island of Samar and Leyte. The eastern part of Mindanao as well as Bicol province on Luzon island are also under consideration, while one of the sources cautioned that talks are "preliminary."

The primary objective of the U.S. military is to help with disaster response and humanitarian assistance, but its expansion also prepares them to counter potential conflict around the island nation. Under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) signed in 2014, the U.S. is allowed to develop military facilities and infrastructure and to preposition materials and fuels in the Philippines.

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Zack Cooper, senior fellow of the American Enterprise Institute, noted that the Philippines, along with Japan, is "among the highest priority" countries for the U.S. to cooperate with as concerns grow over potential conflict in the Taiwan Strait.

The Chinese military "can fall back on a large number of operating locations deep in China, whereas the United States is limited to only a handful of major bases in East Asia. The Biden team has been doing its best to increase access locations across the region, but by far the two most significant land masses near to Taiwan are the Philippines and Japan," Cooper said.

The U.S. military is advancing initiatives to spread units across remote islands along the so-called first island chain, which connects Okinawa to Taiwan and the Philippines, looking to prevent China from focusing on just a few targets.

"We're continually looking at ways to strengthen EDCA and our alliance coordination, but we have no additional plans to announce right now," a Pentagon spokesperson told Nikkei.

In the South China Sea, Beijing has stepped up its pressure on Philippine resupply operations by trying to impede the passage of Philippine ships to the Ayungin Shoal, or Second Thomas Shoal. Tensions rose in early August when China used water cannons on a Philippine Coast Guard ship.

Gregory Poling, senior fellow at the Center for Security and International Studies, argued that it was too early to discuss a potential role for the Philippines in a Taiwan crisis.

"As for Taiwan, the Philippines might someday play an important role in Taiwan contingencies, but I think such speculation is a bit premature," Poling said. "EDCA would have to be substantially implemented and the U.S. would have to show itself reliable in the South China Sea over many years before it is realistic to talk about Philippine involvement in other regional crises."

Beijing is extending its area of operation beyond the first island chain. China is believed to have the ability to disrupt U.S. military operations in the Western Pacific if a conflict occurs.

Chinese fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters practiced taking off from and landing on aircraft carrier Shandong 60 times in the Pacific earlier this month, Japan's Joint Staff showed, providing two photos of those operations as evidence.

Taiwan expects to deploy 2 new submarines by 2027: Security adviser

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen attending a 2020 ceremony for the start of construction of a new submarine fleet in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. PHOTO: REUTERS

UPDATED SEP 25, 2023, 4:54 PM SGT

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TAIPEI – Taiwan hopes to deploy at least two new domestically developed submarines by 2027, and possibly equip later models with missiles, to strengthen deterrence against the Chinese navy and protect key supply lines, the head of the programme said.

Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory, has made the indigenous submarine programme a key part of an ambitious project to modernise its armed forces, as Beijing stages almost-daily military exercises to assert its sovereignty.

President Tsai Ing-wen, who initiated the programme when she took office in 2016, is expected to launch the first of eight new submarines on Thursday under a plan that has drawn on expertise and technology from several countries – a breakthrough for diplomatically isolated Taiwan.

Admiral Huang Shu-kuang, Ms Tsai’s security adviser, who is leading the programme, said a fleet of 10 submarines – which includes two Dutch-made submarines commissioned in the 1980s – will make it harder for the Chinese navy to project power into the Pacific.

“If we can build up this combat capacity, I don’t think we will lose a war,” Admiral Huang in September told an internal briefing on the project, which was attended by Reuters.

Admiral Huang said the first submarine, with a price tag of NT$49.36 billion (S$2.1 billion), will use a combat system by United States arms and defence company Lockheed Martin, and carry US-made MK-48 heavyweight torpedoes. It will enter sea trials in October before being delivered to the navy by the end of 2024.

For subsequent models, Taiwan will leave space for submarine-launched anti-ship missiles, but adding those weapons will depend on production availability in the US, where capacity is already tight, Admiral Huang said, without naming the companies that might be involved.

He called the submarines a “strategic deterrent” to Chinese warships crossing the Miyako Strait near south-western Japan, or the Bashi Channel that separates Taiwan from the Philippines.

Admiral Huang said Taiwan’s diesel-electric submarines can keep China at bay within the first island chain, referring to the area that runs from Japan to Taiwan, the Philippines and on to Borneo, enclosing China’s coastal seas.

“This was also the strategic concept of the US military – to contain them within the first island chain and deny their access,” Admiral Huang said. “If Taiwan is taken, Japan... (and) South Korea will definitely not be safe.”

China’s defence ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

The Chinese navy, including its Shandong aircraft carrier, has become increasingly active in recent months off Taiwan’s eastern coastline, prompting worries that China could launch an attack from that direction. Eastern Taiwan is where planners have long envisioned the island’s military regrouping and preserving its forces during a conflict.

Admiral Huang said the submarines could help maintain the island’s “lifeline” to the Pacific by keeping ports along Taiwan’s eastern coast open for supplies in a conflict.

“The submarines will keep their ships away from our eastern shores,” he said.

Mr Chieh Chung, a military researcher at Taiwan’s National Policy Foundation think-tank, said the fleet would have trouble with that task, because China could position warships in the Pacific before launching an attack.

But he added that the submarines could occupy strategic ambush points in the region and “greatly harm (China’s) combat ability” by targeting high-value ships such as carrier groups or landing fleets.

Taiwan has quietly sourced technology, components and talent from at least seven nations to help it build submarines, a Reuters investigation has found.

Getting foreign assistance was particularly challenging for Taiwan, which does not have official ties with most countries.

Admiral Huang declined to say which countries had approved export permits, but said he had reached out to generals from countries that included the United States, Japan, South Korea and India.

“The foreign generals who agreed with my ideas... helped convey the message to their governments or arrange meetings,” he said. “I told them our needs and that’s how we achieved our purpose of securing export permits.”

Admiral Huang also expressed thanks for the “great help” from a team led by an unnamed retired rear admiral of Britain’s Royal Navy, who secured export permits from Britain through a Gibraltar-based company.

Britain sharply increased the amount of submarine parts and technology exports approved in 2022 for Taiwan, a Reuters analysis of the data showed.

Admiral Huang described the programme as “even harder than reaching the sky”, pointing to challenges such as a global chip shortage that hit many manufacturers around the world. He said his team had scrambled to source chips from Taiwan to avoid delays by foreign vendors.

A foreign supplier had also pulled out at the last minute after their work with Taiwan was leaked to a Chinese embassy, he said, without elaborating.

Admiral Huang said China’s frequent military harassment, including close approaches to Taiwan’s territorial waters and airspace, has prompted Taiwan and the US to rethink the island’s “asymmetrical” strategy of making its forces more mobile and harder to attack, with a focus on smaller weapons systems.

“The American thinking is changing gradually. They realised that you can’t withstand (the harassment) without bigger boats,” Admiral Huang said, pointing to the navy’s plan to build a new generation of bigger frigates.

“They are getting closer and closer,” he added, referring to China. “Taiwan can’t drive them out with small boats. We must use bigger boats.” REUTERS