Michael Mazza
The United States is alone in the world in maintaining an unofficial but truly deep relationship with Taiwan. Yet across the Indo-Pacific region and as far afield as Europe, concerns about China’s designs on Taiwan are widespread. While concerned countries do maintain some level of engagement with Taiwan, many seem to have embraced an indirect approach to deterring Beijing. The Philippines is emerging as the center of gravity for these efforts.
In August, Australia and the Philippines publicized plans to finalize a new defense agreement in 2026. The agreement is expected to institutionalize regular bilateral defense ministers’ meetings, enable a larger slate of combined military exercises, and facilitate Australian investments in Philippine defense infrastructure development. This new agreement will build on a track record of deepening security ties, including an earlier Status of Visiting Forces Agreement.
Richard Marles, the Australian defense minister, announced that “Australia is pursuing eight different infrastructure projects across five different locations…for the benefit of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.” This is reminiscent of the U.S.-Philippines Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, through which the United States has secured access to a number of Philippine bases that the Pentagon is now upgrading. Some of these bases were chosen to better position U.S. forces to project power into the South China Sea and towards the Taiwan Strait. The development sites on which the Philippines and Australia agree will reveal much about how both countries envision this evolving security partnership.
The Australia-Philippines partnership is about more than words on paper. The joint announcement came during the third annual Exercise Alon, bilateral maneuvers involving, according to the Australian chief of joint operations, “realistic, high-end warfighting training.” Australia deployed F/A-18 Super Hornets and EA-18G Growlers to the Philippines for the first time in what the Australian Department of Defense described as “the largest overseas joint force projection activity that Australia has conducted within our region in recent history.”
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