Notes

People’s Republic behaving badly. On June 17, Chinese coast guard ships rammed and boarded Philippine navy vessels, confiscating and damaging equipment. One Philippine sailor lost a finger when a Chinese boat collided with his dinghy at high speed.

The Filipinos were on their way to resupply a WWII-era warship, the Sierra Madre, beached on a partially submerged reef—the Second Thomas Shoal—which has become a critical flash point between the countries. The Philippine armed forces’ chief of staff called the Chinese attack “piracy.” 

The incident is the most serious clash yet between Beijing and Manila in the South China Sea, but for years the People’s Republic has been escalating its “gray zone” tactics in the Philippines’ maritime Exclusive Economic Zone—aggressive actions intended to change the status quo there without resorting to lethal force. Chinese ships have rammed, blocked, surrounded, fired water cannons, and used military-grade lasers against civilian and military vessels. China also uses its coast guard and a “fishing militia”—flotillas of fishermen trained and equipped by the military—to patrol and occupy disputed areas.

Over the past decade, Beijing has become increasingly aggressive in waters far from its coast, claiming ownership of most of the South China Sea against longstanding, internationally recognized treaties. China has seized disputed islands and turned them into military installations, driving tensions with countries throughout the Indo-Pacific. Vietnam and Malaysia say Beijing’s ships intrude in their waters, while Japan and China struggle over control of islands in the East China Sea.

So how are China’s neighbors responding?

Over the past week, Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines have all agreed to new security deals with the United States. On July 28, Tokyo and Washington announced the creation of a joint-force headquarters in Japan, along with a deal to increase their co-production of air-to-air and air-defense missiles. This follows the increased military cooperation agreed during the April state visit by the Japanese prime minister to the U.S. capital, where the two sides agreed to integrate Japan into military exercises and defense architecture with Australia and the U.K.

While U.S. officials were in Tokyo, they attended a trilateral meeting of the defense ministers of Japan, South Korea, and the U.S.—the first visit to Japan by a South Korean defense minister in 15 years. Now, Tokyo and Seoul are overcoming decades of enmity to work together in confronting China, and the three ministers signed a new cooperation memo on July 28, establishing annual, joint military exercises.

Meanwhile, the Philippines and the U.S. agreed on July 30 that Washington would provide US$500 million to modernize the Philippine armed forces, while the U.S. also agreed to boost its investment in Philippine cybersecurity. Manila has become closer and closer to Washington since the election of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in 2022—after his predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, repeatedly made overtures to Beijing and berated the U.S.: In 2023, Manila gave the U.S. military access to four new bases across its islands; and in May, the two countries carried out their biggest joint military drills ever.

—Michael Bluhm