AFP chief: PH turned down US offer to help amid sea tensions
The Philippines had turned down offers from the United States to assist operations in the South China Sea, after a flare-up with China over missions to resupply Filipino troops on a contested shoal, its military chief said.
Tensions in the disputed waterway have boiled over into violence in the past year, with a Filipino sailor losing a finger in the latest June 17 clash that Manila described as “intentional high-speed ramming” by the Chinese coast guard.
The United States, a treaty ally, had offered support, but Manila prefers to handle operations on its own, Armed Forces chief Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. told Reuters in an exclusive interview late Thursday.
“Yes, of course, they have been offering help and they asked us how they could help us in any way,” he said.
“We try to exhaust all possible options that we have before we ask for help.”
Manila and Washington are bound by the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT), a military pact that can be invoked in case of armed attacks on Philippine forces, public vessels, or aircraft in the South China Sea.
PH ‘operation’
Confrontations between the Philippines and China in Asia’s most contested waters have increased in frequency over the past year, as Beijing has pressed its claim to the waterway and Manila continued missions to bring supplies to soldiers living aboard a rusty, aging warship that it grounded on a contested shoal.
Some observers, including former deputy US National Security Adviser Matt Pottinger, have called for direct US naval support for the resupply missions.
But National Security Adviser Eduardo Año said the military wanted the missions to be a “pure Philippine operation.”
“This is our legitimate national interest, so we don’t see any reason for them (the United States) to come in,” he told Reuters.
Año, who spoke to his US counterpart Jake Sullivan last month to discuss shared concerns over China’s “dangerous and escalatory actions,” said the MDT was “far from being invoked.”
“We (the Philippines and China) agreed that there will be some easing tension, but we will assert our rights, we will not compromise our national interest, and we will continue to fight and claim what is ours,” he said.
Neither official specified what support the United States had offered.
Greg Poling, a South China Sea expert at Washington-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Reuters that he believed the United States was open to naval escorts for the resupply missions to the stranded vessel.
Washington has already provided some limited support, he said.
Overwatch
According to Poling, a Philippine official said last year Manila was consulting the US Army Corps of Engineers on how best to stabilize grounded BRP Sierra Madre on contested Ayungin (Second Thomas) Shoal.
He also noted that US aircraft have been filmed on multiple occasions providing overwatch of the ship.
The Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague ruled in 2016 that Beijing’s expansive claims in the South China Sea had no basis under international law.
But that has not stopped China, which rejects the ruling and has deployed coast guard vessels to patrol those areas—alarming the Philippines, rival Southeast Asian claimants and other states operating in the South China Sea, including the United States.
Brawner said the US offer of support, made in discussions at his level, was not a direct response to the June 17 incident but rather a reflection of the enduring military alliance between the two countries.
“It is really because of our being treaty allies, so that offer has been available to us for a long time not just because of the incident,” he said.
“But we did not ask them yet because as per the orders of our President we have to rely on oursel[ves] first.”
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Thursday was a federal holiday in Washington for the United States’ Independence Day.
