China Warns as US, Philippines Stage Combat Exercises

On Wednesday, China warned the deepening security alliance between the United States and the Philippines should not harm its security and regional interests and interfere in the long-running territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

When asked to comment on the combat drills between US and Filipino forces that began Tuesday in the Philippines, the Chinese Embassy in Manila on Wednesday issued a statement by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin, who said such drills “should not target any third party and should be conducive to regional peace and stability."

Wang did not say how China would respond if it concluded that security cooperation between the United States and the Philippines harms Beijing's core interests. 

In Washington, the US and Philippine defense and foreign secretaries met on Tuesday to discuss the development of nine Philippine military camps, where US forces have been allowed to stay indefinitely under the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement.

“These sites will support combined training exercises and interoperability between our forces to ensure that we’re even better prepared for future crises,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said.

He added that the US is allocating more than 100 million dollars to build infrastructure in the locations where the Americans will be stationed. 

China has strongly opposed that agreement, which would allow US forces to establish military staging bases and observation posts in the northern Philippines across the sea from the Taiwan Strait and in the western Philippine provinces facing the disputed South China Sea, which Beijing claims almost in its entirety on historical grounds. Washington rejects China's allegations.

This year's Balikatan drills between treaty allies are the largest since the two sides began joint military combat readiness exercises in the early 1990s.

They will run until April 28 and includes more than 17,600 US and Filipino personnel and a small Australian contingent. 

Organizers said about a dozen countries, including Japan and India but not China, would send observers. 

The exercises are the latest show of US firepower in Asia, as the Biden administration fosters an arc of alliances to better confront China, including a possible showdown over Taiwan, a democratic island that Beijing claims as its own. 

The ongoing exercise, which began in the early 1990s, will showcase US warships, fighter jets, Patriot missiles, HIMARS launchers and Javelins anti-tank missiles, according to US and Philippine military officials.