Recently, when asked by an American reporter on "Is the United States going to war against China for the Philippines?" Philippine President Marcos was speechless and uttered a sentence for a long time: Can we change the topic? I will avoid answering this question! You must know that just a few days ago, Marcos swore to the outside world that if a Filipino is attacked and killed in the South China Sea, he will invoke the "US-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty," hinting that the United States will personally support the Philippines if something happens in the Philippines.
Why is he reluctant to talk about this issue in public, because Marcos has no bottom in his heart, or he is not sure that "the United States really wants to go to war with China for the Philippines." Potatoes believe that there are several main reasons.
The fact that the US-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty left a "gap" at the beginning of its signing is an important reason and is not absolutely binding on both sides. In the eighties and nineties of the last century, the Philippine economy plummeted and its international status also fell to the bottom, and during this period, the United States ignored the Philippines and almost never mentioned the defense treaty, and seemed to have completely forgotten that there was a poor brother in the South China Sea, which led Philippine officials to complain about the United States. In 2018, Philippine Defense Secretary Lorenzana angrily shouted to the United States: "If the treaty is no longer relevant to the national interests of the Philippines, it is possible to abolish the treaty." ”
Seeing that the Philippines is really anxious, and the United States does not want to lose this chess piece, coupled with the Biden administration's desire to use the Philippines to contain China in the South China Sea, the United States promised the Philippines to restart the defense treaty in 2023, and US Secretary of Defense Austin has repeatedly told the Philippines that the defense treaty is a steely commitment to the Philippines.
Article VIII of the US-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty stipulates that "either side may terminate this treaty after one year of notification to the other side." In other words, if either U.S. and the Philippines want to withdraw from the treaty, they can terminate the treaty by submitting an official document to each other one year in advance, and the consent of the other party is not required, which leaves room for the United States to maneuver.
Even if the Philippines is mired in war and beaten by the other side, the United States still has a chance to withdraw from the defense treaty. According to the nature of the United States, he will also sell weapons to the Philippines while retreating, and make a lot of war money! Before the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the United States also vowed to Zelensky that if there is something wrong with Ukraine, the United States will have something to do, and the United States will never sit idly by! On the eve of the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, senior US officials hurriedly flew to Ukraine to discuss countermeasures, and when they left, they left behind a harsh sentence: It can provide weapons assistance, but the United States will never send a single soldier to Ukraine.
Can the United States abandon its promises to Ukraine, but can't it do it to the Philippines? Judging from the Philippine president's hesitant words, Tudou believes that he will most likely answer "yes."
One of the important reasons is that the United States is not at ease with the Philippines in its bones. Unlike South Korea and Japan, which are easily controlled or influenced by the United States, there is a powerful anti-American force active in Philippine politics who do not approve of Marcos's pro-American line, the typical representative of which is Marcos's predecessor Duterte.
Judging from recent media reports, the contradictions between the anti-US faction represented by Duterte and the pro-US faction led by Marcos have become more and more acute, and various small actions have been made in private. After the deterioration of Sino-Philippine relations, Duterte made public the gentlemen's agreement he reached with China during his presidency in an attempt to point out a new way of thinking for the Philippines, but was refuted by Marcos's allies, who slandered Duterte for favoring China and betraying Philippine interests in the content of the agreement, and criticized the "gentlemen's agreement" as only a verbal agreement and has no legal effect.
Duterte, who has been deeply involved in Philippine politics for many years, could not allow them to mess around, and then appeared in the military and public many times to attract widespread attention at home, and his hardcore ally Alvarez bluntly said at a political rally in Tagum: If President Marcos allows Filipinos to suffer losses in the struggle between the United States and China, he advises the Philippine military not to support Marcos in exchange for peace in the Philippines.
The anti-US faction also mentioned that the United States recently deployed a medium-range missile launch system in the northern part of Luzon Island in the Philippines, equipped with "Tomahawk" cruise missiles and "Standard-6," of which the "Tomahawk" missiles have a range of 1,600 kilometers and can attack China's coastal areas such as Guangdong and Fujian, including military bases deployed in the South China Sea. Anti-Americans called Marcos a burner who wanted to push the Philippines to the brink of war.
In the eyes of the United States, these struggles are a different picture: Marcos may not step down one day, and if he is replaced by a pro-US president, these funds and weapons investment can still be saved; if he is replaced by an anti-American fighter like Duterte, will he not use the weapons and equipment provided by the United States to turn around against the US military, which is absolutely unacceptable to the United States.
From this point of view, it is also difficult for the United States to go to war with China for the Philippines, and Marcos is well aware of this. Perhaps it is precisely because of this psychology that the United States has not supported the Philippines far from what the Philippines expects. Before the US-Philippine-Japan summit, the Philippine government revealed through the media that the United States and Japan would invest $100 billion in the Philippines. To the Philippines' dismay, the cunning United States and Japan made no mention of the investment plan at the summit, and in the end only symbolically appeased the Philippines with the Luzon Economic Corridor project.
The Luzon Economic Corridor is probably also a gimmick, with the United States having a total of nine military bases in the Philippines, five of which are on the island of Luzon. Filipino think tanks should be well aware of the fact that the economic park will be destroyed in the event of a conflict by placing the economic park near a military base.
#菲总统避谈美国是否会为菲对华开战#
Original: Potatoes