Japan and the Philippines have agreed to increase military cooperation amid heightened concerns about China’s belligerence in the region. Japanese Defence Minister Gen Nakatani and Philippine Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro, Jr. announced at a recent meeting the establishment of a “strategic dialogue” that is anticipated to further intensify military cooperation and a defence equipment and technology cooperation mechanism.
Talking at a press conference at the conclusion of a two-day visit to the Philippines, Nakatani emphasized the reinforcement of ties to “nurture peace and stability” in the Indo-Pacific region. Describing the rapidly deteriorating security environment, he stressed that both nations should reinforce their defense partnership.
Teodoro echoed this same perspective, pointing to shared interest in being against “unilateral actions by China and other countries” to disrupt the global order. The two nations, both allies under defense treaties with the United States, have also been loudest critics of China’s actions to expand dominance over the South China Sea, a key shipping route passing about one-third of global shipping.
China’s interests span over 90 percent of the South China Sea, in which several Southeast Asian nations including the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Brunei have competing territorial claims. In 2016, a global tribunal at The Hague ruled that China’s interests had no legal basis and established Beijing had violated global law by destroying the environment and obstructing Philippine fisheries and oil prospecting operations. China rejected the ruling, calling it “invalid.”
A spate of renewed tensions arose with the Philippine Office for Maritime Concerns charging China’s navy with putting lives in danger by navigating a helicopter perilously close—with only three meters—of an overflying surveillance plane filled with journalists around the disputed Scarborough Shoal. China’s own military retorted by charging that the Philippines is “hyping and smearing” its action, saying the Philippine plane illegally intruded within Chinese airspace.
