The United States has made a bad move in the South China Sea, and the Philippines is going further and further down the road of "death". In order to meet the needs of the US-Philippine military exercise "Salaknib 2024", the US military deployed the land-based medium-range missile system "Typhon" on the Philippine island of Luzon for the first time. This is also the first time that the United States has deployed land-based intermediate-range missiles in the Asia-Pacific region since it withdrew from the INF Treaty.
The United States deployed Typhon to the first island chain for a number of reasons. The most fundamental reason is that with the continuous improvement of China's military strength in recent years, the US military has lost its military superiority against China in the first island chain and is eager to make amends. China is not bound by the INF Treaty, so it has a large number of tactical and strategic INF weapons in its hands, and it has been replenishing its stockpiles in recent years.
In 2018, Russian media reported that the PLA had at least 2,000 short- and medium-range ballistic missiles that had been deployed for a long time and land-based medium-range cruise missiles with a range of 4,000 kilometers. Now, six years have passed, and the PLA missile force has dozens of brigades, and the number of medium-range missiles in China's hands is likely to be astronomical.
U.S. military medium missile
In contrast, even if the U.S. military bases in the Indo-Pacific are full of intermediate-range missiles, there will probably only be 8 "Typhon" launchers and 6 LRHW launchers. After the great power game has re-emerged as a mainstream issue, this situation has plunged the United States into unprecedented strategic anxiety. Finding more bases to deploy land-based intermediate-range missiles has become an important capital for the US Army to ask Congress for a budget in recent years.
Since 2022, the RAND think tank has advocated that the US military should deploy intermediate-range missiles in the first island chain. In April this year, the US Army Command also briefed that the US military medium-range missile force would be in position in the Asia-Pacific region within the year. The direct reason that stimulated the United States to come to test China is related to the current international situation.
Recently, the performance of the United States on the Russia-Ukraine and Palestinian-Israeli issues has been quite unsatisfactory, which has aroused widespread doubts among European and Middle Eastern allies. Ukraine is facing tremendous pressure from the Russian army on the battlefield, but the tens of billions of aid promised by the United States have not yet materialized. On the Palestinian-Israeli issue, following Hamas, Iran launched another missile attack on the Israeli mainland.
China and the United States
As Israel's security ally, the United States' first reaction afterwards was to calm things down. These performances by the United States have greatly shaken the confidence of its allies. As the U.S. and Europe become more divided, the politicians that the U.S. has cultivated in Europe are gradually being marginalized. For example, von der Leyen has not only been accused of abuse of power by several European parliamentarians, but has also been embroiled in lawsuits for alleged corruption in vaccine procurement.
At the same time, European leaders have begun to frequently seek high-level dialogues with China. Israel, for its part, has vowed to retaliate against Iran. Under such circumstances, the Indo-Pacific allies of the United States have also begun to think about a question, that is, if they side with the United States, will they become the next Ukraine or Israel that falls into the quagmire of war and cannot climb out.
The Philippines is no exception, and Marcos Jr.'s South China Sea policy has raised widespread skepticism at home. The localists, led by Duterte, and even Marcos Jr.'s sister, accused him of pushing the Philippines into a fire pit. Against this background, Marcos Jr. also desperately hopes that the United States will give him a reassurance.
Meifei
Therefore, it is not surprising that after the trilateral summit between the United States, Japan, and the Philippines, the United States announced that it would increase the frequency of joint military exercises in the South China Sea, emphasizing the security guarantees provided to the Philippines, and even brought a set of "Typhon" to Luzon. Judging from Marcos Jr.'s current performance, he is very happy to eat this reassuring pill.
After the trilateral summit ended, he became more and more anti-China, not only saying in a direct showdown that the opening of the new Philippine base to the United States was to deal with China, but also repeatedly stressed that as long as Filipino soldiers died in the Sino-Philippine conflict, the Philippine side could invoke the US-Philippine mutual defense document and demand that the US military take action.
However, Marcos Jr. is complacent and self-righteous, while neighboring Southeast Asian countries look at him like a clown. Recently, two major events have taken place in the direction of Southeast Asia. First, the defense ministers of China and Vietnam met at the border, and the two sides announced that they would jointly promote security cooperation and signed a memorandum of understanding on the naval hotline.
Minister of Defense of China and Vietnam
Second, Singapore's leader, Lee Hsien Loong, announced that he would "retire after success" and hand over the premiership to Lawrence Wong in mid-May. Singapore and Vietnam are distancing themselves from the United States and the Philippines. Vietnam is the target of the United States' efforts in Southeast Asia and has a sovereignty dispute with China over the South China Sea.
By announcing the deepening of security cooperation with the People's Liberation Army at this sensitive time, he is obviously showing goodwill to China, for fear that the fire lit by the Philippines will burn on him. The situation is similar in Singapore. The Lee Hsien Loong family has long been at the helm of Temasek and is the lifeblood of Singapore's economy.
Now the selection of Huang Xuncai, a core member of the team and known as the "most stable", is quite a bit of Abe's rapid retreat, and then the Japanese prime minister began to turn the "marquee" flavor. In other words, it is Singapore's powerful politicians who smell something wrong and find a "back-erpent" to leave a way out for themselves.
Lee Hsien Loong and Lawrence Wong
Marcos Jr. probably hasn't read much of modern Chinese history. As long as he reads it, he will find that the last country that claimed to have a military alliance document with the world and frantically provoked China was called Vietnam, and this country did not end very well. Therefore, Southeast Asian countries with a keen sense of smell have begun to fear the fish in the pond, and only the Philippines is still waving a big flag at the head of the city, being a target for arrows without knowing it.
Of course, China has far more cards to play today than it did in the last century. A simple combing can find at least two ways to make the Philippines "unable to survive and unable to die". The first method is naturally to fill in the island. China has de facto control over a number of islands in the South China Sea, including Scarborough Shoal, which is only 80 kilometers from the Philippine mainland.
If you want to teach Marcos Jr. some lessons, it is a good choice to let the five-star red flag rise under the nose of the Philippines. In addition, it is to directly do it against the broken ship on Ren'ai Jiao. Didn't the United States say that the ship and the sailors on board were within the scope of the protection of the "common defense" document? Then China will take matters into its own hands and try the quality of this document.
Director of the Political Department of the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba, Rojo
In 2016, China was able to use its maritime power to confront a U.S. aircraft carrier group that wanted to break into the South China Sea, and now the Chinese navy has boiled several pots of "dumplings", and it is not afraid that the United States will go to the South China Sea to stir up trouble. Coincidentally, at the time when the US military missile was stationed in the Philippines, the director of the Political Department of the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba visited China to meet with the Chinese military.
The Chinese side said that it is willing to continue to provide Cuba with assistance to the best of its ability and support the building and development of the Cuban army. Therefore, the United States emboldened the Philippines with "Typhon" and instigated Marcos Jr. to provoke China, which was a completely bad move and drove itself into a dead end, but it gave China a legitimate reason to rectify the order in the South China Sea.
Half a year has passed since the third reading of the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea, and China needs some catalysts to accelerate its implementation. From the moment the Philippines welcomed "Typhon" into Luzon, Marcos Jr. was destined to be thrown into a test tube. As the war in the Middle East and Russia and Ukraine grows stronger, this opportunity is not expected to wait long.
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