LAOAG, Philippines (AP) – U.S. and Philippine forces, supported by Royal Australian Air Force surveillance aircraft, used a barrage of high-precision rockets, artillery fire and airstrikes on Wednesday to sink a mock enemy ship as part of an operation. large scale war training The disputed South China Sea and its surrounding waters are hostile to the Chinese government.
Military personnel and diplomats from several countries watched the display of firepower from atop a hill along a sandy beach in Laoag City, Ilocos Norte province, the northern hometown of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
More than 16,000 military personnel from the United States and the Philippines, along with hundreds of Australian troops and military observers from 14 countries, were participating shoulder-to-shoulder in the annual combat readiness exercise known as “balikatan” in Tagalog. The exercise, which began April 22 and ends Friday, includes a scenario of a foreign invasion of the Philippine Islands.
This is the latest sign of how the United States and the Philippines have strengthened their defense treaty alliance, which began in the 1950s, amid recent concerns over China’s increasingly aggressive behavior in disputed territories in Asia. be.
Marcos ordered the military to shift its focus from decades of domestic counterinsurgency operations to external defense. china’s actions The South China Sea has become a top concern. This strategic shift is consistent with US President Joe Biden and his administration’s efforts to strengthen the arc of alliances in the Indo-Pacific region against China.
China has angered the Philippines by repeatedly harassing Philippine navy and coast guard vessels. powerful water cannon, a military-grade laser to deter movement and other dangerous maneuvers in high seas near two shoals in the disputed South China Sea. It caused a minor collision, injuring several Philippine Navy personnel and damaging a supply ship.
“We are being held at gunpoint,” Philippine Ambassador to Washington Jose Romualdez told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
“We don’t have the means to counter all this bullying coming from China, so where else are we going to go?” Romualdez said. “We went to the right party, the people who believe in America and what America is doing.”
China accuses the Philippines of invading what it claims is its offshore territory and provoking hostilities in disputed waters. They are separated by 10 dashes on the map. The Chinese Coast Guard and Navy said they were forced to take action to force the Philippine Coast Guard and other vessels out of these waters. The Philippines has repeatedly cited a 2016 international arbitration award under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea that invalidated China’s claims to virtually the entire South China Sea on historical grounds.
China did not participate in the arbitration petition filed by the Philippines in 2013, rejected the ruling, and continues to defy it.
The simulated enemy ship was repeatedly hit by missiles, artillery and bombs dropped by US and Philippine fighter jets during combat training, and sank with black smoke billowing from its stern. The Philippine military said the targeted ship was Chinese-made, but it was decommissioned by the Philippine Navy in 2020 due to mechanical and electrical problems.
Philippine military officials said the drill was not targeted at any country. China opposes military exercises involving U.S. forces and any expansion of U.S. military deployments in the region, warning that it would increase tensions and threaten regional stability.
The first combat exercise in several years took place in and near the hotly contested Spratly Islands region, which China has heavily guarded with its coast guard, navy and platoons of what appears to be militia.
On Monday, U.S. and Philippine Marines transported by Black Hawk helicopters practiced securing an airfield in Itbayat, the country’s northernmost town on the Bashi Strait near southern Taiwan. A small group of journalists, including the Associated Press, were invited to witness the air and ground combat exercises.
“They’re not operating in a safe area. They’re operating a little further out than the western border, and they’re doing it to train in ways that they might actually need to work.” said Bee Walcott, a British defense attaché based in Manila who oversaw the sinking exercise.
washington and beijing on a collision course China’s increasingly assertive actions to protect its claims in the South China Sea and Beijing’s stated goal of annexing Taiwan by force if necessary.
Last February, President Marcos approved expanding the U.S. military presence in the Philippines by allowing rotational groups of U.S. forces to stay in four more Philippine military camps. This was a sharp change in direction from his predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, who feared that an expanded U.S. military presence would antagonize the Chinese government.
China strongly opposed the move, which would allow the U.S. military to set up staging areas and observation posts in the northern Philippines across the strait from Taiwan and in the western Philippine provinces facing the South China Sea.
China warned that the deepening security alliance between Washington and Manila and the two countries’ ongoing military exercises must not undermine its security and territorial interests or interfere in territorial disputes. The Philippines countered that it had the right to protect its sovereignty and territorial interests.
“The alliance is very important to show that China may have all the ships they have, but we have the firepower to sink them all,” Romualdez said.
