Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has twice postponed the expiration of the Philippine-U.S. military visitation agreement (VFA), and the statute of limitations is about to expire. The government’s decision to use the VFA as a bargaining chip between the two powers will affect the whole situation.
The government has also announced that the government will be the first to adopt the “VFA” in the future. (Photo／Central News Agency)
The Philippines and the United States signed an agreement on mutual military visits in 1998, reaffirming the obligations of the “Mutual Defense Treaty” (MDT) signed between the two countries in 1951, which is one of the important military agreements of the Philippine-U.S. alliance. If the Philippines withdraws from this agreement, U.S. forces will not be able to continue to conduct military exercises in the country.
According to Rommel Banlaoi, president of the Institute of Chinese Studies of the Philippines, the Rodrigo Duterte administration has been playing between the two major powers, the United States and China.
He said that “we tend to use the U.S. card” in response to the Chinese Communist Party’s activities in the South China Sea. Although postponing the termination date of the VFA to gain the support of Washington, but still holds the leverage to withdraw from the agreement, while lifting the ban on oil and gas exploration in the disputed waters of the South China Sea, plans to jointly develop oil and gas resources with Beijing.
However, with the presidential election approaching next May, Duterte’s “independent foreign policy” is bound to come under greater pressure as the South China Sea dispute heats up and the United States becomes actively involved in regional affairs.
Duterte and the presidential administration have been relatively soft on the Chinese Communist Party, even choosing to keep quiet after more than 200 Chinese ships gathered at Whitsun Reef in the South China Sea and a Philippine television reporter was expelled by a Chinese maritime police vessel in the exclusive economic zone, which has drawn heavy criticism from the opposition.
One of the opposition’s top generals is former Philippine Justice Antonio Carpio, an active advocate of Philippine sovereignty in the South China Sea.
In a speech at Ateneo de Manila University in February 2020, Carpio said that Beijing once started construction on Huangyan Island (Scarborough Shoal) in March 2016, but Washington said the island construction was a “red line” for the United States. ” before China stopped.
Carpio said that according to the layout of the South China Sea, the bases of Yongxing Island (Woody Island), Nansha Islands and Huangyan Island could form a strategic triangle, but there is still a gap in this strategic triangle. Once the VFA is terminated, the Chinese Communist Party will restart the reclamation of Huangyan Island; after the construction is completed, together with the anti-ship cruise missiles, the Chinese Communist Party will be able to cover the whole South China Sea.
In other words, the Philippines’ withdrawal from the VFA not only means that U.S. forces will no longer be able to conduct exercises in the Philippines, or that U.S. troops, ships, and aircraft will no longer be able to pass through the Philippines before arriving at other destinations, but also sends a message to Beijing that the red line no longer exists, and that it can begin to grab a piece of the South China Sea pie.
Carl Thayer, a South China Sea expert at the University of New South Wales in Australia, told a forum of the Foreign Correspondents’ Association of the Philippines on April 13 that Washington authorities believe the military balance in the Indo-Pacific region is increasingly unfavorable to the United States, which will increase the risk that the Chinese Communist Party will try to change the status quo in Taiwan and the South China Sea.
Searle argued that the build-up of Chinese militia ships on NiuYeYe Reef is a counter-attack to the U.S. military’s intensified free navigation operations in the South China Sea, intended to pressure Duterte, whose position on whether to end the VFA is wavering, and to disrupt the possibility of a renewed strong alliance between the Philippines and the U.S., proving that no U.S. strategy can change the regional status quo.
The Philippine government does not want to be drawn into the U.S.-China tug-of-war, but the public is “incited” by the South China Sea controversy, putting the government under pressure to turn a blind eye to the U.S.-China South China Sea rivalry, a Philippine military source told Central News Agency.
It seems that Doughty will not easily give up the VFA as a bargaining chip. He said last December that if the U.S. could not provide at least 20 million doses of the 2019 coronavirus disease (Chinese communist virus, COVID-19) vaccine, he would terminate the VFA; Duterte said in February that if the U.S. wanted to continue the agreement on mutual military visits, “you must pay”.
Before former President Donald Trump left office, the then national security adviser, air force secretary and acting defense secretary visited the Philippines in quick succession, sending at least 2.268 billion pesos (about NT$1.32 billion) worth of military equipment and training.
Jose Manuel Romualdez, the Philippine ambassador to the United States, said in March that the U.S. Department of Defense had presented the Philippines with a list of scheduled military assistance that “appears to be sufficient to meet our requirements.”
Whether or not Manila authorities eventually withdraw from the VFA, Searle believes that tensions in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea are bound to rise. The Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy will lead to more frequent air and sea encounters, and the United States and China will put more pressure on regional countries to take sides.
Manila informed the United States last February that it would withdraw from the agreement on mutual military visits between the two countries. Although the Philippine government has twice proposed to postpone the rescission deadline for six months, the statute of limitations will expire in May; as there is still a buffer period for withdrawal from the VFA, if Duterte does not postpone it further, the VFA is scheduled to be terminated in August.
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