As the situation in the South China Sea continues to heat up, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos recently visited Vietnam and began to seek to strengthen maritime cooperation between the two sides. A few days ago, the two sides signed two memorandums of understanding, one of which is to reach a consensus on the coordination of the coast guard to deal with possible sudden "crisis" events in the South China Sea. The other was an agreement to set up a communication hotline and set up a joint coast guard committee to discuss common issues. As for what the so-called "common issues" refer to here, the Philippines and Vietnam did not disclose more details. This point is worth pondering, is it possible that there is any "shady" transaction in this? But whether it is true or false, we can be sure of a certain amount. Marcos's move to the Philippines is bound to make the rest of ASEAN unhappy. At present, China and ASEAN countries have officially launched the third reading of the text of the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea, and agreed to accelerate consultations on the Code of Conduct, with a view to reaching an effective, substantive Code of Conduct that conforms to international law at an early date. The Philippines' move is to bypass ASEAN and win over Vietnam alone, in an attempt to have more say in the implementation of relevant norms, so as to contain China. This is not something that other ASEAN countries like to see.
So will Vietnam really follow Marcos and set up a united front against China? At present, this is not very likely. On the one hand, now the Philippines and Vietnam have only signed a memorandum of understanding on the sea, which is not enough to pose a threat to China. In addition, there are similar agreements between China and Vietnam, and they have worked well, such as the signing of the Memorandum of Cooperation between the Vietnam Coast Guard Command and the China Coast Guard in 2016. On the other hand, due to the influence of its geographical location and diplomatic line, if Vietnam takes the initiative to intensify the maritime contradictions between China and Vietnam, it is likely to achieve the opposite effect, which is destined to be unable to be as tough on China as Marcos.
As a result, the biggest problem lies with the Philippines itself. After Marcos took office, he basically changed the foreign policy of his predecessor Duterte, and became closer and closer to the United States, not only strengthening the military alliance with the United States, but also expanding the scope of access to US military bases in the Philippines. Most notably, U.S. military involvement in the South China Sea is becoming more frequent. The website of the US Naval Institute disclosed on January 29 that an air base in the Philippines will undergo a major upgrade to accommodate US warplanes that "deter China." If the plan goes well, then the last gap in the US encirclement of China will be filled.
As everyone knows, with the intensification of Sino-US competition, the US military deployment and strategic arrangements in the Asia-Pacific region are being laid out one after another. Looking at the map, Singapore, Australia, South Korea, Japan, and the United States have formed a semi-circular encirclement around China, while there is a gap between Singapore and northern Japan, and the Philippines is clearly the last piece of the puzzle that the United States wants, which is of great strategic value for US military intervention in the Taiwan Strait and defeating China's attacks in the Pacific region. The air base that the US military plans to upgrade this time, named Basha Base, was once the air base of the US military stationed in the Philippines during World War II, and its strategic location is very important, located in the central part of Luzon Island to the south, and most of Luzon Island in the north acts as a barrier. What merits vigilance is that since the Basha base is only about 700 kilometers away from the mainland's Taiwan region, if the US military deploys large fighter jets here, its combat radius will cover the southern part of the mainland's Taiwan. Judging from the three-day joint air and sea patrol conducted by the United States and the Philippines in the South China Sea last year, once the US F-35s are stationed here for a long time, they will inevitably aggravate regional tensions, adversely affect the overall stability of the international community, and to a certain extent, strategically suppress our military.