According to the official website of the U.S. Army Pacific on April 15, the U.S. Army's No. 1 Multi-Domain Task Force has "historically" deployed a medium-range missile system in northern Luzon Island in the Philippines.
Prior to this, China's Ministry of National Defense made it clear that it resolutely opposes the deployment of medium-range missiles by the United States in the Asia-Pacific region and will resolutely counter them.
As a result, as soon as China's countermeasures fell, the United States announced the deployment of intermediate-range missiles in the Philippines, which will surely cast more shadows on the already tense situation in the South China Sea.
Senior Colonel Wu Qian, spokesman for the Ministry of National Defense of China
The US "Navy News" website even bluntly stated that the US military's medium-range missiles are deployed on Luzon Island, and the strike range "can reach various bases along the coast of China and in the South China Sea."
However, from a military point of view, it must be pointed out that the actual purpose of the United States in vainly attempting to deploy medium-range missiles in the Philippines and even in the entire Asia-Pacific region is not to directly attack China.
In fact, based on the existence of the "nuclear balance of terror", the probability of a direct attack on the mainland of another country between superpowers such as China and the United States is relatively small.
However, not attacking the mainland does not mean that it will not threaten China's interests. In fact, the US medium-range missiles are aimed at the increasingly powerful Chinese Navy.
U.S. medium-range missile system
Some possible changes in the direction of the South China Sea and even the direction of the Taiwan Strait must be resolved by the navy. In the past, our navy was relatively weak, so a regional denial strategy was formed based on land-based and air-based forces.
Using all kinds of missiles and all kinds of aircraft carrier killers to force back the US aircraft carrier fleet and reduce their threat to the mainland of Chinese mainland, this tactic has achieved great success and has caused headaches for the United States to this day.
However, correspondingly, the tactics that are strong against the United States are also powerful once they are used by the other side against China. At present, the United States is taking advantage of the friction between China and the Philippines in the South China Sea and the military alliance between the United States and Japan to deploy medium-range missiles in the Asia-Pacific region, targeting the Chinese Navy.
This is a "regional denial" that the United States wants to rely on the so-called "first island chain" and "second island chain" to carry out a reverse "regional denial" against China.
The Philippines has opened four military bases to the U.S. military
Second, from the perspective of bilateral relations between China and the Philippines, or bilateral frictions, the deployment of medium-range missiles by the United States will not weaken China's initiative and advantage in the South China Sea.
This is not to say that China and the United States are stronger or weaker in terms of naval strength, but that China is fighting with its own back, and the army, air force, rocket force, and navy are four in one.
Although the United States has relied on the Philippines and other military allies to deploy missiles at the front of the road, after all, it is far away from the US mainland, it is difficult to supply, and the route is long.
Moreover, the United States is just trying to encourage the Philippines, not really trying to fight, they don't even dare to move Russia in Eastern Europe, they only dare to support Ukraine to fight a proxy war, and naturally they don't dare to easily provoke a conflict with China in East Asia.
U.S. aircraft carrier battle group
Therefore, this matter will ultimately have to be resolved by the political and diplomatic games between the two sides, and as for the Philippines, it is just a pawn that may be abandoned by the United States at any time.
Third, now that we know the military and political significance of the US deployment of medium-range missiles, the next thing we should pay attention to is how China will respond to the US move.
In fact, in recent times, the United States, Japan and the Philippines have colluded with each other to escalate the situation, but China has not been idle. On the one hand, in the face of the provocative military exercises of the United States, Japan, and the Philippines, the Southern Theater of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) has also carried out live-fire exercises and patrols in relevant sea areas, demonstrating the determination of the Chinese armed forces to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity without fear of war.
But based on the speculation that a direct conflict between China and the United States is unlikely, these are just routine military statements.
The People's Liberation Army (PLA) conducts live-fire exercises in the South China Sea
The real winner of the two sides is still in diplomacy. Compared with the United States' attempt to encircle Japan and the Philippines, its own little brothers, against China, China's method of breaking the deadlock is actually to reverse encircle the black sheep, unite more regional countries, and oppose extraterritorial black hand interference.
According to the official information on the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, from April 18 to April 23, mainland Foreign Minister Wang Yi will visit Cambodia, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea upon invitation.
These three countries, if you look at it geographically, just surround the Philippines in the middle, among which Cambodia, needless to say, has always had very friendly relations with China, and Indonesia and PNG have also developed by leaps and bounds with China in the past two years.
This is not to say that China wants to deploy military assets in these three countries as well, but to diplomatically encircle and put pressure on the Philippines, the black sheep of the black herd, which is willing to act as a pawn of the United States and insists on provoking in disregard of the overall situation of peace and stability in the region.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi
From a broader perspective, the Philippines is just a pawn, and what it really wants to oppose is the long-arm interference of the United States, as an extraterritorial country, meddling in the affairs of the South China Sea and undermining peace and stability in the region.
Recently, China, Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia and other Southeast Asian countries have actively engaged in diplomatic activities to form a consensus against foreign countries undermining the hard-won peace and development of the region, which is a countermeasure to the relevant actions of the United States.
In the final analysis, Southeast Asia is the common home of Southeast Asian countries, and if other countries in the region oppose the Philippines' behavior of stirring up trouble with the support of the United States, then the United States will naturally have nowhere to start in the South China Sea.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos
In fact, the United States is already sensing this exclusion, as evidenced by some Western media reports that ASEAN is somewhat "rejecting and isolating" the Philippines. In fact, it is not the ASEAN countries that reject the Philippines, but the Philippines that isolates itself from the region.
From this point of view, although the United States has increased the deployment of military assets in order to make fuller use of the Philippines as a pawn, China also has its own response arrangements, which are sufficient to maintain its dominant control over the situation in the South China Sea.
The only thing to worry about in this matter is whether the United States is deliberately repeating the dangerous moment of the Cuban Missile Crisis by deploying intermediate-range missiles around China so unscrupulously.
The U.S. military's "medium-range capability" missile launch system arrived in the Philippines
What needs to be emphasized is that China is not the Soviet Union, we have our own strategic determination, and we will not affect our strategic rhythm because of some US layouts. At the same time, however, we will not sit idly by in the face of the United States' escalation of its military deployment at China's doorstep, because if the United States insists on going its own way, it is destined to pay the price for its actions.