WASHINGTON/MANILA: US Vice President Kamala Harris visits the Philippines this week in the Biden administration’s latest high-level engagement with America’s oldest Asian ally and an increasingly vital strategic partner as tensions rise with China over Taiwan.
The following are some of the main issues surrounding her visit:
WHY IS THE PHILIPPINES SO IMPORTANT TO THE UNITED STATES?
The Philippines is a former US colony and became a US treaty ally in 1951, five years after independence. During the Cold War, it hosted some of America’s largest overseas bases, facilities vital to the US wars in Korea and Vietnam. Philippine nationalism forced Washington to vacate those in the 1990s, but in recent years the allies have cooperated on counter-terrorism and in response to rising Chinese military pressure in the South China Sea, where the Philippines has rival claims.
Today, because of its geography, the Philippines is central to US plans to deter and respond to any Chinese attack on Taiwan, a self-administered island China claims as it own.
Tensions over Taiwan are expected to feature when Harris meets with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr on Monday (Nov 21), Manila’s ambassador to Washington Jose Manuel Romualdez told Reuters.
Harris also plans a highly symbolic stop on the Philippine islands of Palawan in the South China Sea to show US support for its ally.
HOW DOES THE COUNTRY FIT INTO US PLANNING FOR A POSSIBLE CONFLICT OVER TAIWAN?
Of the five US treaty allies in the Indo-Pacific – Australia, South Korea, Japan, the Philippines and Thailand – the Philippines is closest to Taiwan, its northernmost land mass of Luzon just 200km away.
Experts such as Randall Schriver, who served in the Trump administration as the top Pentagon official for East Asia, said Luzon is of great interest to the US Army, in particular, as a potential location for rockets, missiles and artillery systems that could be used to counter an amphibious invasion of Taiwan.
He said the political environment for greater military access appeared to be improving under Marcos after a rocky period of relations during the six-year term of President Rodrigo Duterte, who sought closer ties with China.
Washington has carefully courted Marcos and Harris’s visit following two meetings between President Joe Biden and Marcos and a visit by Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Manila in August.
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