At present, the United States is locked in a two-front war, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict has not ended, and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is still escalating, so the United States cannot take care of the Indo-Pacific region. And to maintain pressure in the Indo-Pacific region, U.S. allies are actively provoking China, including in the South and East China Seas. During this period, the Philippines frequently deliberately provoked incidents in the Spratly Islands. However, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos went so far as to claim that the bilateral relationship between the Philippines and China is now "going in the wrong direction" and accuse China of unilaterally changing the status quo in the South China Sea. At the same time, Japan also began to hype in the East China Sea. Recently, Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed strong protest against the discovery that China was developing gas fields on the "median line" side of the East China Sea. From the continental shelf, these gas fields in the East China Sea have nothing to do with Japan, they are nothing more than coming to touch porcelain, and Japan and the Philippines, the two porcelain touchers, have also begun to huddle together to keep warm.
Compared with the previous painless provocations, this time the Philippines intends to "walk a tightrope". Recently, the Philippine Department of Defense confirmed that the Japanese Self-Defense Forces and the Philippine military held a delivery ceremony at Wallace Air Force Base in San Fernando, and Japan handed over the FPS-3/MEs active phased array long-range air surveillance radar to the Philippines, which has a maximum detection range of 610 kilometers and can cover most of the South China Sea. The Philippines and Japan continue to strengthen military cooperation, and last month Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida visited the Philippines, and the two sides agreed to start negotiations on a "reciprocal access agreement" that would allow both forces to train and operate on each other's soil. During this period, Japan announced that it would provide five sets of coastal surveillance radars to the Philippine Navy, the first time since World War II that Japan lifted the ban on arms exports. Moreover, Japan's purpose in providing radar to the Philippines is not pure. If a reciprocal access agreement is reached, Japan will also be able to share the information obtained from the radar, which will allow Japan to obtain sea and air intelligence in the Bass Strait that it has never obtained. This also means that Japan will control all the near-shore sea and air intelligence about China in the first island chain, and Japan's hand is stretched too long.
Not long ago, Marcos asserted that a stronger China is posing a real challenge to its Asian neighbors, that the Philippines and Japan are strengthening their alliances, and that trilateral cooperation with the United States should be pursued. At present, only Japan, the Philippines, and the ROK are saying this, and other Asian countries are all getting along with China. For example, this time, the Philippines frequently provoked and pretended to be a victim, and none of the ASEAN members agreed to talk to each other, but got closer to China, while the Philippines is still running all the way down the wrong path.
Marcos, who recently attended the Japan-ASEAN summit in Tokyo, said he was looking to launch new exploration projects in the South China Sea to meet energy demand. The report also pointed out that the Philippines and Japan, which has no claim to sovereignty in the South China Sea, have begun negotiations on an agreement to station troops in each other. During Marcos' visit to China earlier this year, China and the Philippines agreed to resume consultations on joint offshore oil and gas development as soon as possible. However, the Philippines has to die, and joint development is almost impossible. Now the Philippines is counting on the United States and Japan to help him fight for more interests in the South China Sea, and now the Philippines and Japan are huddled together for warmth, which can only be said to die faster. At the moment, we are waiting for an opportunity for the United States to bite the hook in the Red Sea, when the South China Sea may be about to change.