MANILA (AP):
American and Filipino forces on Tuesday launched their largest combat exercises in decades in the Philippines and its waters across the disputed South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait, where Washington has repeatedly warned China over its increasingly aggressive actions.
The annual drills by the long-time treaty allies called Balikatan – Tagalog for “shoulder-to-shoulder” – will run up to April 28 and involve more than 17,600 military personnel. It will be the latest display of American firepower in Asia, as the Biden administration strengthens an arc of alliances to better counter China, including in a possible confrontation over Taiwan, an island democracy that Beijing claims as its own.
That dovetails with efforts by the Philippines under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr to defend its territorial interests in the South China Sea, which China claims virtually in its entirety, by boosting joint military exercises with the US and allowing rotating batches of American forces to stay in additional Philippine military camps under a 2014 defence pact.
“The relationships that we have, that we build into these exercises, will make us faster to respond to conflict, crisis, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief,” US Marine Maj Gen Eric Austin said.
About 12,200 US military personnel, 5,400 Filipino forces and 111 Australian counterparts are taking part in the exercises, the largest since Balikatan started three decades ago. The drills will showcase US warships, fighter jets as well as Patriot missiles, HIMARS rocket launchers and anti-tank Javelins, according to US and Philippine military officials.
In a live-fire drill, the allies will stage for the first time, US and Filipino forces will sink a target ship in the Philippine territorial waters off the western province of Zambales on April 26, in a coordinated inland and coastal artillery bombardment and airstrike, Col Michael Logico, a Philippine spokesman for Balikatan, told reporters.
“We have to fire at a target that is closer to what we would expect in an actual threat, which is an intrusion coming from an adversary by sea,” Logico told reporters. “We are demonstrating that we are combat-ready.”