The Philippines is working behind the scenes to enhance its defensive cooperation with Taiwan, the Washington Post said in a report published on Monday.
“It would be hiding from the obvious to say that Taiwan’s security will not affect us,” Philippine Secretary of National Defense Gilbert Teodoro Jr told the paper in an interview on Thursday last week.
Although there has been no formal change to the Philippines’ diplomatic stance on recognizing Taiwan, Manila is increasingly concerned about Chinese encroachment in the South China Sea, the report said.
Photo: AP
The number of Chinese vessels in the seas around the Philippines, as well as Chinese cybersecurity attacks and espionage, have increased, the report said, citing information from the Philippine National Security Council.
The Philippines is “entitled” to negotiate its relationship with Taiwan, given that prior attempts to ease tensions with China have so far found no success, the report quoted Teodoro as saying.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, officials told the newspaper that security cooperation with Taiwan is “further along” than publicly disclosed, following a new policy by Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr that reduced restrictions on exchanges between the two countries.
Filipino academics with ties to the nation’s defense establishment earlier this year participated in forums with high-ranking Taiwanese generals to better understand security thinking in the country, the paper said.
Taiwan’s Coast Guard Administration and the Philippine Coast Guard recently carried out joint patrols of the Bashi Channel, it added.
Taiwan also sent observers to a joint US-Philippine-Japan military exercise called Kamandag that took place in the Batanes islands, it said.
Batanes is the Philippines’ northernmost province and less than 200km south of Taiwan.
Although Philippine officials did not say the exercise targeted China, the report cited analysts who said they were clearly meant to counter Chinese ships.
An anonymous Taiwanese adviser said that although personnel did not participate, the two countries are “closer and closer” in defense matters, the newspaper reported.
In a news release last month, a spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of National Defense said that the Philippines has “tied itself to the US war chariot, and become a coconspirator in destabilizing the region.”
Due to the Philippines’ proximity to Taiwan, Taiwan’s large Filipino population and US defense agreements with the country, one Filipino academic told the paper that “we’d be kidding ourselves not to see the necessity of working with Taiwan.”
The report quoted another professor as saying that “Taiwan is our buffer from an expansionist China.”
The recent visit to Taiwan by two senior Philippine officials and one former official caused “severe diplomatic complications,” Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs Theresa Lazaro said in a letter that the newspaper obtained.
The report also quoted Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) as saying that while the two countries were diplomatically distant before, they have “started to smile at each other.”
WAITING GAME: The US has so far only offered a ‘best rate tariff,’ which officials assume is about 15 percent, the same as Japan, a person familiar with the matter said Taiwan and the US have completed “technical consultations” regarding tariffs and a finalized rate is expected to be released soon, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference yesterday, as a 90-day pause on US President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs is set to expire today. The two countries have reached a “certain degree of consensus” on issues such as tariffs, nontariff trade barriers, trade facilitation, supply chain resilience and economic security, Lee said. They also discussed opportunities for cooperation, investment and procurement, she said. A joint statement is still being negotiated and would be released once the US government has made
NEW GEAR: On top of the new Tien Kung IV air defense missiles, the military is expected to place orders for a new combat vehicle next year for delivery in 2028 Mass production of Tien Kung IV (Sky Bow IV) missiles is expected to start next year, with plans to order 122 pods, the Ministry of National Defense’s (MND) latest list of regulated military material showed. The document said that the armed forces would obtain 46 pods of the air defense missiles next year and 76 pods the year after that. The Tien Kung IV is designed to intercept cruise missiles and ballistic missiles to an altitude of 70km, compared with the 60km maximum altitude achieved by the Missile Segment Enhancement variant of PAC-3 systems. A defense source said yesterday that the number of
‘CRUDE’: The potential countermeasure is in response to South Africa renaming Taiwan’s representative offices and the insistence that it move out of Pretoria Taiwan is considering banning exports of semiconductors to South Africa after the latter unilaterally downgraded and changed the names of Taiwan’s two representative offices, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday. On Monday last week, the South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation unilaterally released a statement saying that, as of April 1, the Taipei Liaison Offices in Pretoria and Cape Town had been renamed the “Taipei Commercial Office in Johannesburg” and the “Taipei Commercial Office in Cape Town.” Citing UN General Assembly Resolution 2758, it said that South Africa “recognizes the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the sole
Taiwanese exports to the US are to be subject to a 20 percent tariff starting on Thursday next week, according to an executive order signed by US President Donald Trump yesterday. The 20 percent levy was the same as the tariffs imposed on Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh by Trump. It was higher than the tariffs imposed on Japan, South Korea and the EU (15 percent), as well as those on the Philippines (19 percent). A Taiwan official with knowledge of the matter said it is a "phased" tariff rate, and negotiations would continue. "Once negotiations conclude, Taiwan will obtain a better