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By Malik Ayub Sumbal
The United States has announced a new military financial package worth $500 million for the Philippines, aimed at bolstering the latter's defense capabilities. This package also includes a proposed plan for joint intelligence sharing between the two nations. While officially positioned as a measure to enhance security, this move is widely seen as an attempt to destabilize the region and potentially trigger a new arms race in East Asia.
This support by the Joe Biden administration will highly depend on the discretion of the next U.S. president, especially when the U.S. is facing an economic crisis and is already saddled with heavy spending on the defense sector outside.
The timing and nature of the package has raised concerns about its potential to disrupt the precarious balance of power in East Asia as it includes significant upgrades to the Philippine Navy and new infrastructure projects. However, it is unclear how much of this aid will genuinely serve the Philippines' external defense needs and how much it will advance Washington's strategic interests in the region. Perceived as an open interventionist policy by the U.S., this risks inflaming tensions in an already volatile area.
The recent visit by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to the region has only worsened these concerns. Rather than fostering an atmosphere of dialogue and reducing tensions, their trip has been seen as pushing the region towards greater hostility.
The U.S. defense aid to the Philippines is not merely a matter of enhancing military capabilities; it threatens to undermine the unity of the Asian community and disrupt the harmony among ASEAN countries. Its potential to fuel an arms race is significant, as other nations in the region may feel compelled to increase their own defense spending in response.
Moreover, there are concerns that this package may not be endorsed by the next U.S. administration. The incoming president may scrutinize these expenditures closely.
This last-minute military package appears to serve a dual purpose – using the Philippines as an ally for greater U.S. dominance in the "Indo-Pacific," and asserting U.S. influence in the region. There are legitimate concerns about whether the Philippines has the capacity to withstand the pressures of such an alliance, particularly given the complex geopolitical dynamics at play.
There are severe concerns from the Philippines as well. Several Philippine organizations from the Bay Area protested outside the Philippine Consulate General in San Francisco to condemn Philippine President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos. The protesters demanded that the money should be used for jobs and education and not for other activities. They also raised their concerns against U.S.-Philippines defense cooperation that gives U.S. troops access to four additional Philippine military bases by expanding an old defense treaty.
A lot of the public perception about the military aid is that it puts the Philippines at the point of no return in case of any collision and the majority of the Philippines people are not in favor of it. It may push the Philippines to adopt a more aggressive maritime policy that could have a serious backlash and drag the country into a proxy war.
As the U.S. prepares for a change in leadership, the future of this package and its impact on regional stability remains uncertain. Only time will tell how these developments unfold and what they mean for the broader geopolitical landscape in the Asia-Pacific.
Malik Ayub Sumbal, a special commentator on current affairs for CGTN, is an award-winning journalist, geopolitical analyst and author of the book Tovuz to Karabakh, A Comprehensive Analysis of War in South-Caucasus.
