Philippines Become Latest Target of Chinese Aggression

On March 5, the government of The Philippines announced that it had summoned China’s deputy chief of mission in Manila over yet another act of aggression from the Chinese military. The news marks the most recent escalation of tensions in the South Pacific as China continues its belligerence and concerns mount about the ability of the United States and its allies to fend off a potential Chinese strike.

According to Reuters, a Philippine naval ship carrying out a routine resupply mission was “harassed (and) blocked by Chinese maritime militia and coast guard ships.” The Philippine government, which called the Chinese vessels’ actions “reckless” and “illegal,” said the encounter led to a collision between a Chinese and Philippine ship resulting in damage to the latter.

“China’s interference with the Philippines’ routine and lawful activities in its own exclusive economic zone is unacceptable,” the Philippine foreign ministry said in a statement. “China’s actions in Ayungin Shoal infringes upon the Philippines’ sovereign rights and jurisdiction.”

The Philippines are just the latest South Pacific nation to experience a fraying relationship with Beijing. Chinese vessels now commonly block and harass Filipino fishing boats, while Beijing has doubled down on its claims to ownership of several Filipino military outposts.

The Philippines’ U.S. ambassador Jose Manuel Romualdez also said recently that there is now a real possibility of a major incident in the West Philippine Sea, referring to the 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone between The Philippines and China. “The aggression that we are now facing is very real,” Romualdez said, without specifically naming China. “Never in our lifetime even during World War II did we face such a challenge because this country [referring to China] will not let up on their claim in many of our territorial waters.”

Leaders in the United States and many other allied nations share Romualdez’s concern about the growing threat to The Philippines from China.

“The Philippines-China incident can trigger a chain reaction in the region involving theatres from Korea’s Peninsula to Japan through Pacific Islands,” one senior defense official from an Indo-Pacific country told me. Wishing to remain anonymous so he could speak freely, he added that military exercises are ramping up in the region precisely due to fears of conflict with China.

Indo-Pacific experts also fear that China has launched a diplomatic island-hopping campaign to build influence in the Pacific and potentially threaten U.S. national security.

The Solomon Islands, for instance, have sought closer relations with Beijing, while Nauru, a tiny island nation northeast of Australia, recently broke ties with Taiwan in a sign of allegiance to China.

The President of Palau also recently revealed that China offered the country funding if it revoked its support for Taiwan and abandoned the United States. Palau is home to important radar detection systems, including one that forms part of Guam’s missile defense.

In February, Kiribati, another small island nation of about 110,000 people located 2,500 miles southwest of Hawaii, announced that uniformed Chinese police officers are now working with its local police force. Kiribati is notably home to a Japanese satellite tracking system operated jointly with its allies, including the United States.

China has also continued its aggressive posture toward Taiwan, to the point where, as one New York Times opinion columnist recently put it, “China is running out of red lines to cross.”

In total, there were some 1,700 incursions by China into Taiwan’s airspace and waters last year, a dramatic uptick from just a few years ago. The Chinese military’s violations of Taiwan’s national boundaries have now become so frequent, in fact, that Taiwan has stopped scrambling jets in response.

Military defense experts have warned that China’s Taiwan ambitions are just part of a broader plan in the Indo-Pacific that has been in the works for decades. As Professor Gianfranco Fontanino, a former strategist for NATO and advisor to the alliance’s operations divisions in the 1980s and 1990s, told me, at one point, “Russia had regular military drills with China with scenarios relating to the Taiwan operation.”

Fontanino believes that today’s strategists should consider the worst-case scenario of simultaneous or sequential war events in the Indo-Pacific, including a North Korean attack on South Korea, a Russian attack on Japan, and a Chinese attack on Taiwan and the Philippines. China, of course, would by the lynchpin of such an operation.

“The worst-case scenario should be the foundation for military planners; it must predict as precisely as possible the limit of the adversary,” he said.

For the United States, one of the most immediate areas of concern is Guam, home to major U.S. military installations. At just under 3,000 miles from mainland China, Guam would undoubtedly be a top target for a Chinese first strike. In 2021, Admiral Phillip S. Davidson, the former commander of United States Indo-Pacific Command, called Guam “the most critical operating location west of the international date line.”

But in the opinion of several specialists with whom I spoke, the missile defense systems on Guam are woefully inadequate in the face of the most advanced Chinese hypersonic missiles – in large part due to funding shortfalls from the Biden administration.

According to a recent Department of Defense report, the current missile defense systems on Guam are only deemed to be “generally effective” against “a small number of simple threats.”

Robert Underwood, chair of the Pacific Center for Island Security, a Guam-based think tank, told me the report presents a dismal picture of the island’s defenses. “This recent technical report from the U.S. Defense Department clarifies that the technology being talked about for Guam is not ready for prime time,” he said.

He explained that the Ukraine war shows how threats are evolving, including the advent of drone swarms, and that “these threats are neither small nor simple.”

“Most of the missiles China selected for an attack on Guam are hypersonic, and America’s defense against them is less than impressive,” Professor Fontanino added. “A lack of a 360-degree missile defense system is inexcusable.”

Despite this, however, the White House only requested $209 million to develop missile defense solutions in 2024, while the Pentagon asked for less than $515 million in funding over the previous two years combined.

The vulnerability of U.S. military assets to attack from China represents gross neglect and a complete failure of deterrence on the part of the Biden administration. China’s increasing boldness is a consequence of this, and is something the entire world, not just the Indo-Pacific, will now have to contend with as a result.

Ben Solis is the pen name of an international affairs journalist, historian, and researcher.