Thousands of US and Philippine troops yesterday began one of their largest combat exercises in years that was to include live-fire maneuvers, aircraft assaults, urban warfare and beach landings, in a showcase of US firepower in the northern Philippines near its sea border with Taiwan.
The annual exercises, called Balikatan — Filipino for “shoulder-to-shoulder” — are to run until Friday next week with nearly 9,000 navy, marines, air force and army troops, including 5,100 US military personnel, to strengthen the allies’ “capabilities and readiness for real-world challenges,” US and Philippine military officials said.
China would likely frown on the war drills given their relative proximity to Taiwan, but organizers said the exercises do not regard any particular nation as a target.
Photo: Reuters
“The US military and Armed Forces of the Philippines will train together to expand and advance shared tactics, techniques and procedures that strengthen our response capabilities and readiness for real-world challenges,” said Major General Jay Bargeron, the US Third Marine Division’s commanding general. “Our alliance remains a key source of strength and stability in the Indo-Pacific region.”
First staged in 1991, the exercises are anchored on the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty, which commits the US and the Philippines to come to the aid of the other in case of an attack.
The allies aim to be strong and seamlessly braced for any security contingency as a deterrence against war.
“It’s for mutual defense, never for offense,” Philippine military spokesman Colonel Ramon Zagala said.
The treaty alliance “declares formally our sense of unity and determination to mutually defend against external armed attack, so that no potential aggressor could be under the impression that either of them stands alone,” Zagala said.
However, the governor of northern Cagayan province, where amphibious landings with limited live-fire maneuvers are scheduled to be held in the coastal town of Claveria this week, has opposed any joint exercise utilizing gunfire, fearing it could antagonize China.
“The military consulted and asked me, but I said I cannot allow any live-fire exercise. Any exercise is OK, but live-fire,” Cagayan Governor Manuel Mamba said by telephone. “We have to engage China, but not in a war, because I know Taiwan is a powder keg.”
China, along with the US and Taiwan, have expressed interest in investing in Cagayan, which has an underdeveloped agricultural sector and related industries, Mamba said
“I’m not pro-China, I’m pro-Cagayan,” he said.
A Philippine military official said the beach landing exercises would proceed in Claveria without any live-fire training, which would be held instead at Crow Valley, an aircraft gunnery range in Tarlac province south of Cagayan.
The combat exercises are being held amid heightened tensions between Taiwan and China, but Zagala said most of the military maneuvers had been planned a year ago and did not consider the tensions in the Taiwan Strait.
Major Kurt Stahl of the US Third Marine Division said that while most combat exercises and humanitarian projects would take place in the north of the Philippines, some maneuvers would be staged on the western island province of Palawan, along with an air defense exercise featuring US and Philippine fighter aircraft around the western side of Luzon.
That region faces the disputed South China Sea, where China’s increasingly assertive actions, including the building of missile-protected island bases to reinforce its vast territorial claims, have sparked protests from rival claimants.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central
‘MISGUIDED EDICT’: Two US representatives warned that Somalia’s passport move could result in severe retaliatory consequences and urged it to reverse its decision Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) has ordered that a special project be launched to counter China’s “legal warfare” distorting UN Resolution 2758, a foreign affairs official said yesterday. Somalia’s Civil Aviation Authority on Wednesday cited UN Resolution 2758 and Mogadishu’s compliance with the “one China” principle as it banned people from entering or transiting in the African nation using Taiwanese passports or other Taiwanese travel documents. The International Air Transport Association’s system shows that Taiwanese passport holders cannot enter Somalia or transit there. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) protested the move and warned Taiwanese against traveling to Somalia or Somaliland
RSS