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President Joe Biden has told Ferdinand Marcos Jr that the US-Philippines alliance was “ironclad”, stressing that their mutual defence treaty applied to attacks on Filipino armed forces, in a warning to China.
Following a bilateral meeting, the White House said the leaders had “underscored their commitment to international law in the South China Sea”.
“President Biden reinforced the ironclad US alliance commitment to the Philippines under the US-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty, which extends to armed attacks on Philippine armed forces, public vessels or aircraft — to include those of its Coast Guard — in the Pacific, including anywhere in the South China Sea,” the White House said.
The statement was released as Biden was hosting Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, and Marcos for the first-ever trilateral summit between the countries. The trilateral followed the bilateral meeting and came one day after the US president held a summit with Kishida.
The warning comes as the US and its allies become very concerned about Chinese activity around the Second Thomas Shoal, a reef in the South China Sea inside the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.
The Chinese coastguard has been attempting to stop the Philippines from resupplying marines who are stationed on the Sierra Madre, a rusting ship that has been sitting on the shoal for 25 years.
The Philippines deliberately grounded the ship on the reef in an effort to reinforce its claims to the feature, which is also claimed by China. An international tribunal at The Hague in 2016 ruled that China had no legitimate claim of sovereignty over the reef.
Washington in recent weeks has stepped up warnings to remind China that the Sierra Madre is covered by the 1951 mutual defence treaty. US officials are concerned Beijing is underestimating the potential that an incident could result in the Philippines invoking the treaty and asking for US military engagement.
In a joint statement after the trilateral, the three leaders expressed “serious concerns” about China’s “dangerous and aggressive behaviour in the South China Sea”.
They said they were specifically concerned about China’s “repeated obstruction of Philippine vessels’ exercise of high seas freedom of navigation and the disruption of supply lines to Second Thomas Shoal”.
The US-Japan summit and trilateral meeting are part of the effort by the Biden administration to bolster bilateral alliances and also create mini-lateral groups to help create what it calls a “latticed” security architecture in Asia.
Speaking before the trilateral, Kishida said it was “essential” to have “multi-layered co-operation between” allies and like-minded countries in order to “maintain and bolster a free and open international order based on the rule of law”.
Earlier in the day, he became the second Japanese prime minister to deliver a speech to Congress, in which he said China posed the “greatest strategic challenge” to the security of Japan and the wider world.
Marcos said the three countries were “bound by a shared vision and pursuit of a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific” and had a partnership that was “natural progression” of a deepening relationship that was “linked by a profound respect for democracy, good governance and the rule of law”.
The three leaders are expected to announce that the coastguards from the US, Japan and the Philippines would conduct a joint patrol later this year. Last weekend, the navies from the three countries joined Australia in conducting their first joint exercises in the South China Sea inside the Philippines’ EEZ.
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