By Chen Xiangmiao
The recent "historic" first summit of the leaders of the US, Japan and the Philippines in Washington came up with a joint statement saying that the three countries will work together and commit to "the cause of peace and freedom". Nevertheless, no mellifluous slogan can disguise the fact that the US is pursuing its own hegemonic interests through undisguised realpolitik.
Since the Biden administration took office, the US has pressed the acceleration button for its military expansion in the South China Sea. The US has elaborated every exercise in the region, including the "Shoulder-to-Shoulder" joint maritime exercise, Cope Thunder exercise and Salaknib 24 joint army exercise. In the US-Philippines "Shoulder-to-Shoulder' exercise which invited new members France and Japan (observer), subjects and scenarios were set against explicit targets. Sinking enemy surface ships, recapturing islands occupied by hostile forces, and launching dynamic missile strike, air and missile defense, cyber defense and information warfare and other simulated scenarios were all tailored for the situations in the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait and the East China Sea informed by the experience gained through the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Furthermore, the medium-range missile launch system was employed for the first time in the Salaknib 24 joint army exercise held at the same time. Cope Thunder joint air exercise has become an important tool for the US military to examine the utility of its air bases in the Philippines during real combat. The US military conducts more than 100 exercises of different scales in and around the South China Sea every year, which exposes its warlike gene of seeking benefit through force.
It is learned that the US Army has deployed a land-based missile launch system code-named Typhon in northern Luzon in the Philippines and employed it in the Salaknib 24 exercise. The Typhon system can carry Standard Missile 6 (SM-6) supersonic surface-to-air missiles and Tomahawk cruise missiles. As the first deployment of medium-range land-based missile launch systems in the Asian-Pacific region after the end of the Cold War, it revealed the underlying intention of the US withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) in 2019 as the preparation for its expanded deployment of medium and long-range strategic capabilities in the Asian-Pacific region.
As a matter of fact, the construction of forward military base clusters is the long-term goal of the US military expansion in the South China Sea. The US is far from satisfied even though it has already had nine agreed military bases in the Philippines. The Philippine government revealed that the US military intended to return to Subic Bay two years ago. The US private sector's forcible acquisition of Hanjin Shipyard in Subic Bay confirmed the US military's attempt to gradually convert this deep-water port into an important logistics, maintenance and supply base for its operations in the Western Pacific under the cover of civil activities. Subic Bay is located in the middle point between the northern and southern parts of the South China Sea, about 1,000 kilometers from the Taiwan Strait, Bashi Channel, Hainan Island, as well as the southern parts of Vietnam and the Nansha Qundao respectively, which highlights its strategic value. The return to Subic Bay is a vital step of the US military base cluster construction in Southeast Asia, which further indicates that the US clings to its ambition of expanding its power by military means.
On the other hand, while the status of the Philippines as a main military base of the US in the South China Sea may present its government with the pleasure of exerting tough words to China on the South China Sea issue in the short term, it will find itself mired in the whirlpool of military competition between the US and other major powers in the region. If the Philippines wantonly continues to provide convenience for the US military expansion in the South China Sea, it will eventually turn out to be a victim of major power competition.
The US has established several "cliques" such as those among the US, Japan and the Philippines, the US, Japan and the ROK and the US, the UK and Australia. In particular, the summit of the leaders of the US, Japan and the Philippines marks the infiltration into the South China Sea by the US-led 'clique', posing a formal challenge to the ASEAN-led regional security architecture with regional multilateralism as the core principle. As littoral states in the South China Sea, ASEAN countries should stay vigilant against the ulterior motives of the US.
The US, out of the desire to continue its waning hegemony, is setting up a trap in the South China Sea to get all countries entangled. In this regard, while managing the maritime differences among them, regional countries urgently need to upgrade their regional security cooperation and respond to the "US trap'.
(The author is the director of the World Navy Research Center, National Institute for South China Sea Studies.)
Editor's note: Originally published on huanqiu.com, this article is translated from Chinese into English and edited by the China Military Online. The information and opinions in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn.
