U.S. military forces joined those from the Philippines for yearly Balikatan combat drills April 21, preparing for a “full-scale battle scenario” in the disputed South China Sea. These enlarged war maneuvers are a reflection of Washington’s deepening military collaboration with its former colony. This escalation is driven by sharpening conflicts with the state capitalist rulers of China. Beijing has threatened to use force over its claims on Taiwan, the self-governed island north of the Philippines.
Just two weeks earlier, Chinese coast guard vessels were filmed repeatedly attempting to ram a smaller Philippine ship. Similar confrontations have taken place for years.
The U.S.-led maneuvers, deploying warships, planes and land forces, will involve live-fire tests, including with new anti-ship missiles, through May 9. About 9,000 U.S. and 5,000 Philippine troops are participating, along with smaller armed contingents from Australia and Japan, Washington’s imperialist allies in the Pacific region.
The Chinese rulers’ economic and military power is a growing challenge to Washington’s supremacy in the Pacific. The U.S. rulers have long considered this region a crucial prize won with their bloody victory in World War II.
In response to the Balikatan war games, Beijing deployed the Shandong aircraft carrier with several other warships east of Luzon, the Philippines’ largest and northernmost island. At the same time, a carrier strike group led by the USS Nimitz arrived in Guam, a U.S. island territory and base in the western Pacific. From here its carrier planes can reach the Chinese coast.
Balikatan, which means “shoulder to shoulder” in Philippine-language Tagalog, has assumed greater weight since Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. took office in 2022. He has pursued a deepening alliance with Washington. U.S. forces have been granted access to four more Philippine military bases, in addition to five previously agreed to, while the Balikatan war games have nearly doubled in size. This year, they’ve been extended to three Philippine islands near Taiwan.
Beijing, which has built fortified islets in the South China Sea, claims sovereignty over almost the entire area, passageway to almost a third of global shipping. Rival claims over parts of that sea have been made by the governments of Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, Taiwan and the Philippines.