The Philippines identifies 4 new camps for US forces amid Chinese anger

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine government on Monday designated four new military camps, including some across the sea from Taiwan, where rotating batches of US troops will be allowed to be stationed indefinitely despite strong objections from China.

The administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. announced in February that it had agreed to expand the US military presence to four additional Philippine military bases from the current five locations under the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement between longtime treaty allies.

Marcos said the move will strengthen the coastal defense of the Philippines. It aligns with the Biden administration’s efforts to strengthen an arc of military alliances in the Indo-Pacific to better counter China, including any future confrontation over Taiwan.

New locations identified by Marcos’ office include a Philippine naval base in Santa Ana and an international airport in Lal Lu, both in northern Cagayan province. These sites have angered Chinese officials because they would provide US forces with a staging post near southern China and Taiwan, the self-ruled island that Beijing claims as its own.

The other two military districts are in the northern province of Isabella and a naval camp on Palapak Island in the western province of Palawan.

Palawan faces the South China Sea, a key corridor of global trade that claims almost all of it to Beijing, and has taken increasingly aggressive actions that threaten smaller claimants, including the Philippines.

China and the Philippines, along with Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan, have entered into increasingly tense territorial disputes over the crowded and resource-rich South China Sea. Washington claims no claims to the strategic waters but has deployed warships, fighter jets and surveillance planes for patrols that it says promote freedom of navigation and the rule of law, angering Beijing.

“This is a trade route, where more or less $3 trillion of trade passes. Our responsibility in securing that collectively is huge,” said Carlito Galvez, who heads the Philippine Department of Defense.

Marcos’ office said the four new military outposts for US forces are “appropriate and mutually beneficial” and will “enhance the nation’s disaster response” as a springboard for humanitarian and relief work during emergencies.

In a statement, the US Department of Defense said the new locations “will enhance interoperability of the US and Philippine armed forces and allow us to respond more seamlessly together to address a range of common challenges in the Indo-Pacific region.”

In a meeting last month with Philippine officials in Manila, a delegation from the Chinese Foreign Ministry expressed strong opposition to the expansion of the US military presence in the Philippines and warned of repercussions for regional peace and stability, a Philippine official involved in the talks said at the time.

Philippine diplomats responded that the decision to allow the expansion of the US military presence is in the national interest of the Philippines and will enhance its ability to respond to natural disasters, the official said, noting that the move does not target China.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of a lack of authority to discuss the sensitive issue publicly.

The Chinese embassy also warned in a recent statement that the Philippine government’s security cooperation with Washington “will drag the Philippines into the abyss of geopolitical conflict and harm economic development at the end of the day.”

Long-running territorial disputes remain a major irritant in Philippine-China relations. The Marcos administration has lodged at least 77 of more than 200 diplomatic protests against China’s increasingly assertive actions in the disputed waters since he took office last year.

The Philippines used to host two of the largest US Navy and Air Force bases outside of the US mainland. The bases were closed in the early 1990s after the Philippine Senate rejected an extension, but US forces later returned to conduct large-scale combat exercises with Philippine forces under the Visiting Forces Agreement.

The Philippine Constitution prohibits the permanent stationing of foreign forces and their participation in local combat. The 2014 agreement allows visiting US troops to remain indefinitely in alternating batches in barracks and other buildings they construct within designated Philippine camps with their defense equipment, except for nuclear weapons.

The Department of National Defense in Manila said the US military presence was not a re-establishment of US military bases in the Philippines, as opponents asserted.