Philippines names 4 new camps for US forces amid China fury
- Two new sites infuriate Chinese officials because they would provide US forces with a staging ground close to southern China and Taiwan
- Another site is in a province that faces the South China Sea, a key passage for global trade that Beijing claims virtually in its entirety
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The new sites identified by Marcos’ office include a Philippine navy base in Santa Ana town and an international airport in Lal-lo town, both in northern Cagayan province. Those two locations have infuriated Chinese officials because they would provide US forces with a staging ground close to southern China and Taiwan, the self-ruled island Beijing claims as its own.
The two other military areas are in northern Isabela province and on a local navy camp on Balabac island in the western province of Palawan.
“That’s a trade route, that’s where more or less US$3 trillion worth of trade passes. Our responsibility in collectively securing that is huge,” Carlito Galvez, who heads the Philippine defence Department, said.
The four new military sites where American would gain access were “suitable and mutually beneficial” and would “boost the disaster response of the country” as springboard for humanitarian and relief work during emergencies, Marcos’ office said.
In a closed doors meeting in Manila with their Philippine counterparts last month, however, a Chinese Foreign Ministry delegation expressed its strong opposition to an expanded US military presence in the Philippines and warned of its repercussions to regional peace and stability, Philippine officials said.
The Chinese Embassy separately warned in a recent statement that the Philippine government’s security cooperation with Washington “will drag the Philippines into the abyss of geopolitical strife and damage its economic development at the end of the day”.
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The Philippines used to host two of the largest US Navy and Air Force bases outside the American mainland. The bases were shut down in the early 1990s after the Philippine Senate rejected an extension, but American forces later returned for large-scale combat exercises with Filipino troops under a Visiting Forces Agreement.
The Philippine Constitution prohibits the permanent basing of foreign troops and their involvement in local combat. The 2014 agreement allows visiting American forces to stay indefinitely in rotating batches in barracks and other buildings they construct within designated Philippine camps with their defence equipment, except nuclear weapons.
The Department of National defence in Manila said the American military presence was not a re-establishment of US military bases in the Philippines, as opponents have asserted.