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U.S. and Philippines have joint Military drills, a partnership against Chinese aggression
from His Grace Magazine
by His Grace
Manila, Philippines, in the IndoPacific region: The United States is now increasing its cooperation with the Philippines in an attempt to counter China's growing aggressiveness, an increased cooperation that includes joint military drills and a possible reopening of the United States' naval base in the Philippines.
The United States Navy left the Philippines 32 years ago, but now as the threat of China increases, this is the largest joint military drill ever held between the two countries. It involved more than 17,000 Philippine and United States soldiers together. This time, the training had included live-fire drills at sea.
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Major General Marvin Licudine, the Philippines exercise director, said: "The highlight of the exercise will be the combined joint littoral live-fire exercise, which aims to rehearse of the Sea."
Regardless of criticism from China, the long public is concerned and as far as the Philippine defense establishment and strategic elite is concerned, that has not gone away." joint and combined tactics, techniques and procedures to execute the maritime strike. The drills come at a time when China aggressively monitors nearly all of its borders, especially in the South China Sea, where the Coast Guard recently intercepted a Philippine patrol in its own country's waters. We are proceeding according to our planned route. You are to remember that China is a party of the United Nations Convention of the Law scheduled drills also make a warming to the United States and Philippines' relationship under the new President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. The public opinion in the Philippines is remaining strong in favor of keeping the alliance very strong.
Richard Heydarian who is an author and policy advisor on the Asia Pacific region said, "And that element of continuity is the strong preference for strong ties with the United States as far as the Philippine
Just before the United States naval base was shut down in 1992 at Subic Bay in the Philippines, it was one of the largest military bases in the entire world. The base was actually bigger than some countries and it was closed 30 years ago.
As of now, it may be starting up again. That's mainly because of a newly extended defense cooperation agreement that the United States is now going to sign with the Philippines to try to help with the threat from China. Richard Heydarian said, "We need to build the alliance with the United States. More than 70% of Filipinos in the survey said we need to build the alliance with the United States."
