Japanese Defence Minister Minoru Kihara (centre) delivers his statement with Philippines’ Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr.,(not in picture) during a meeting to discuss bilateral ties and defence, as well as regional security, in Philippines, on July 8, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Japan and the Philippines signed a key defence pact on July 8 allowing the deployment of Japanese forces for joint military exercises, including live-fire drills, to the Southeast Asian nation that came under brutal Japanese occupation in World War II but is now building an alliance with Tokyo as they face an increasingly assertive China.

“The Reciprocal Access Agreement, which similarly allows Filipino forces to enter Japan for joint combat training, was signed by Philippine Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro and Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa in a Manila ceremony witnessed by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. It would take effect after ratification by the countries’ legislatures,” Philippine and Japanese officials said.

Mr. Kamikawa called the signing of the defence agreement “a groundbreaking achievement” that should further boost defense cooperation between Japan and the Philippines.

“A free and open international order based on the rule of law is the foundation of regional peace and prosperity,” she said. “We would like to work closely with your country to maintain and strengthen this.”

Mr. Kamikawa and Japanese Defence Minister Minoru Kihara later held talks with their Philippine counterparts on ways to further deepen relations. The defence pact with the Philippines is the first to be forged by Japan in Asia. Japan signed similar accords with Australia in 2022 and with Britain in 2023.

Under Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, the Japanese government has taken steps to boost its security and defensive firepower, including a counterstrike capability that breaks from Japan’s postwar principle of focussing only on self-defence, amid threats from North Korea and China’s growing assertiveness. It’s doubling defense spending in a five-year period to 2027 in a move to bolster its military power and make Japan the world’s third-biggest military spender after the United States and China.

Many of Japan’s Asian neighbours, including the Philippines, came under Japanese aggression until its defeat in World War II and Japan’s efforts to bolster its military role and spending could be a sensitive issue. Japan and the Philippines, however, have steadily deepened defence and security ties.

Mr. Kishida’s moves dovetail with Mr. Marcos’ effort to forge security alliances to bolster the Philippine military’s limited ability to defend Manila’s territorial interests in the South China Sea. The busy sea passage is a key global trade route which has been claimed virtually in its entirety by China but also contested in part by the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.

The United States has also been strengthening an arc of military alliances in the Indo-Pacific to better counter China, including in any future confrontation over Taiwan, and reassure its Asian allies. Japan and the Philippines are treaty allies of the U.S. and their leaders held three-way talks in April at the White House, where President Joe Biden renewed Washington’s “ironclad” commitment to defend Japan and the Philippines.

Japan has had a longstanding territorial dispute with China over islands in the East China Sea. Chinese and Philippine coast guard and navy ships, meanwhile, have been involved in a series of tense confrontations in the South China Sea since last year.

In the worst confrontation so far, Chinese coast guard personnel armed with knives, spears and an axe aboard motorboats repeatedly rammed and destroyed two Philippine navy supply vessels on June 17 in a chaotic faceoff in the disputed Second Thomas Shoal that injured several Filipino sailors. Chinese coast guard personnel seized seven navy rifles.

The Philippines strongly protested the Chinese coast guard’s actions and demanded $1 million for the damage and the return of the rifles. China accused the Philippines of instigating the violence, saying the Filipino sailors strayed into what it called Chinese territorial waters despite warnings.

Japan and the United States were among the first to express alarm over the Chinese actions and call on Beijing to abide by international laws. Washington is obligated to defend the Philippines, its oldest treaty ally in Asia, if Filipino forces, ships and aircraft come under an armed attack, including in the South China Sea.

Philippine Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro talks during the closing ceremony of U.S.-Philippines Balikatan joint military exercise at Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City, metro Manila on May 10, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

The Philippine military must evolve fast because of threats to a “free and open” Asia-Pacific region, Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro said on May 10 at the end of annual exercises with the United States.

Mr. Teodoro, whose comments were made against the backdrop of a festering maritime row with China, said the military must “try to focus on actual soldiering”.

“The worst thing in a kitchen is a dull knife, and a good chef hones the knife every day,” Mr. Teodoro said.

“We will be increasing the pressure continuously for them to evolve as soon as possible into a multi-threat, multi-theatre operating armed force,” he said.

The annual “Balikatan” war games, involving around 11,000 American, 5,000 Filipino and 100 Australian troops, began on April 22 and were concentrated in the northern and western parts of the archipelago nation, near the potential flashpoints of the South China Sea and Taiwan.

The area has seen increased confrontations between Chinese and Filipino vessels around shoals in the South China Sea claimed by Manila, as well as stepped-up Chinese air and naval activity around nearby self-ruled Taiwan.

Beijing claims almost the entire South China Sea, brushing off rival claims from other countries, including the Philippines, and an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis.

It deploys hundreds of coast guard, navy and other vessels to patrol the contested waters.

China’s coast guard has blasted Philippine vessels with water cannon off Second Thomas Shoal and Scarborough Shoal in the disputed sea this year, causing damage and injuries.

“No amount of malign, or for lack of a better term, perverse attempts to subvert our goal for a free and open Indo-Pacific and a rules-based international order will stop our shared advance towards upholding these internationally accepted norms come what may,” Mr. Teodoro said, using the United States’ preferred term for the Asia-Pacific the region.

‘Shoulder to shoulder’

Lieutenant General Michael Cederholm, commander of the U.S. First Marine Expeditionary Force, said the joint exercises — dubbed Balikatan, or “shoulder to shoulder” in Tagalog — “directly built warfighting readiness” for the allies.

“It should also give pause to any adversary who does not believe in a free and open Pacific, who does not believe in transparency, who does not seek peaceful resolution but would seek to use force to impose their will on other sovereign nations,” he said.

The row between the Philippines and China took another turn on Friday when Manila’s top security adviser called for the expulsion of Chinese embassy staff he accused of “malign influence and interference”.

The Chinese embassy said in a statement on May 3 that diplomats had reached an informal agreement with the Philippine armed forces, through its Western Command, to handle disputes around Ren’ai Jiao, China’s name for Second Thomas Shoal, in the South China Sea.

Mr. Teodoro said on Monday there was no such agreement with Chinese diplomats.

On Friday, Philippine National Security Adviser Eduardo Ano accused the Chinese embassy of “repeated acts of engaging in and dissemination of disinformation, misinformation, and malinformation”.

He said those “responsible for these malign influence and interference operations must be removed from the country immediately”.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said Friday that Beijing “solemnly requires that the Philippines effectively ensures that Chinese diplomats can perform their duties normally, (and) stops infringement and provocation”.

Second Thomas Shoal is garrisoned by Filipino troops stationed on a grounded naval ship who are frequently resupplied by boat with food, water and other provisions.

The resupply missions to the remote reef have become a flashpoint between the rival claimants.