Cherry Hitkari
Manila’s adoption of Japan’s “one theater concept” has further escalated tensions with China. Proposed in March this year, the concept breaks from Tokyo’s traditional security outlook and views the East China Sea, the South China Sea and the Korean Peninsula as a “single theater.”
Analysts in Chinese news media were quick to read it as a formation of a Washington-led “Mini NATO in the Asia-Pacific” aimed at “containing China.”
A commentary noted how President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s attempts at a thaw with Beijing in early 2025 were derailed within a week when the US promised $50 million in military aid that “thoroughly exposed” Marcos’s “profiteering tendency.”
Another analysis related the situation to the Reciprocal Access Agreement signed between Manila and Tokyo in July last year. Many defined the concept as an “absurd” one that “deliberately confuses” distinct geographical regions, solely to build a case for foreign intervention. The continued stationing of US military’s advanced missile systems, Typhon and NMESIS, in Manila is similarly viewed as a way of targeting China.
While Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr.’s moves are broadly described as “unacceptable,” some in China believe he is still “pragmatic” in finding common strategic ground with Japan when compared with Lithuania, which expressed concerns over the “axis” formed by “China, Russia and North Korea” that must be opposed through an “alliance of democracies.”
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