The Philippines is building defense alliances with the US and other security partners to help pave the way for resource exploration in the oil-and-gas-rich South China Sea, the nation’s top defense official said, amid heightened tensions with Beijing.
“I really do think it’s quite urgent that we start now,” Philippine Secretary of Defense Gilberto Teodoro Jr said in an interview with Bloomberg News on Wednesday in his office in Quezon City, Metro Manila.
While he declined to provide details, Teodoro, 59, said that resource exploration is “part of the package” of the Philippines’ strategy in fighting for its territory.
Photo: Bloomberg
His comments suggest that energy exploration could well be the next flashpoint in the territorial disputes in the South China Sea, where Beijing has laid a sweeping claim opposed by countries, including Taiwan and the Philippines, and rejected by an international tribunal in 2016.
The Philippines, which imports almost all its fuel requirements, has been trying to start energy exploration in its territorial waters as a key local gas field nears depletion.
That bid had been largely foiled by the maritime dispute with China, which routinely deploys ships in the contested waters.
Beijing’s agenda in the South China Sea might also be spurred by energy interests, Teodoro said.
“This could mean that they really want total domination and control over everything from free passage to resources, or they want to bear hug the Philippines to make them the sole joint venture partner in the exploration or exploitation of resources in this area,” Teodoro said.
“Their legal position is untenable and has been rejected by the whole world,” he said.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr had lately stepped up a push to end the deadlock in negotiations in South China Sea resource exploration, almost a year since he met his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping (習近平), and agreed to jointly pursue discussions.
Since that meeting in Beijing in January last year, relations between the two neighbors have become rocky, marked by increasingly dangerous encounters at sea.
The Philippines will not allow any joint exploration that does not recognize the nation’s right to exclusively exploit these resources, Teodoro said.
“Our role really is to secure the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Philippines, and to protect as much as we can the peaceful and unimpeded exploitation by Filipinos and legally allowable entities,” said Teodoro, a lawyer by training and a one-time presidential contender.
In the face of a “more aggressive” China, the Southeast Asian nation is also planning “more robust” military activities with the US and its allies, Teodoro said, describing Manila’s alliance with Washington as “extremely strong.”
Early last year, the Philippines agreed to expand US access to military bases near Taiwan and the South China Sea.
The Philippines is also expanding ties with “other allies and like-minded countries,” including Australia, Japan, the UK and Canada. As the US heads into a crucial election in November, Teodoro hoped that Washington’s defense strategy in the Indo-Pacific would not waver.
“A lot has been invested already on both sides,” he said, referring to the US and Philippine engagements.
Ensuring security in the Indo-Pacific region and rights of passage in the vital trade route benefits not only the US and its allies, but the entire global economy, he said.
Tensions escalated in the past few months as Philippine and Chinese ships faced off in the contested waters.
Teodoro said that what worries him the most about the dispute is “the possibility of a miscalculation or a conflict.”
“You’re dealing with a country without any openness, with opaqueness, with unpredictability, with no external indicators to show what its next move will be,” he said of China.
As a result, countries like the Philippines have to be prepared all the time, which Teodoro said has kept him busy “hardening and building up our alliances” in line with Marcos’ foreign policy stance.
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