The annual US-Philippine military exercise Balikatan began on 22 April and will continue until 10 May. Originally planned as a relatively small and bilateral exercise, in recent years it has become the largest of those conducted by the United States in the Indo-Pacific region with the participation of one or more of its allies…

Since the onset of the 21^st Century, tensions around the world have been simmering. Great power rivalry has reached to a new apex since the culmination of the Cold War. The rivalry between China and the United States is considered one of the most significant and appalling issues of the era. Given the importance of maritime trade, the South China Sea and the Southeast Asian countries have emerged as the strategic focus of the rivalry between the two sides…

Tensions continue to grow in the Asia-Pacific region and more specifically in the South China Sea, where China faces off against the United States and its collection of regional proxies including Japan and Australia. While the US claims these growing tensions stem from China’s desire to undermine “freedom of navigation” and stability in the region, it is instead part of a decades-long US policy of containing China…

Japan is currently facing a number of serious political and economic challenges, forcing the country’s political-military leadership to respond accordingly. On January 30, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida presented an extensive policy report on the Japanese government’s plans for 2024 at the regular session of the country’s parliament, which meets once a year.  In the foreign policy section, Fumio Kishida outlined the following trunk lines…

Just a few years ago, the US and its allies made a strategic decision to increase their presence in the Pacific Ocean region. After the “agreement of the century” with Australia in 2021 to lay down a shipyard for the construction of Virginia-class nuclear submarines, the Americans placed emphasis on developing military cooperation with the countries of Southeast Asia. A Japan-Philippines-U.S. (JAPHUS) trilateral alliance with similar strategic goals to AUKUS and an even larger geographic scope is in the process of being established…

Last year, 17,600 troops from the Philippines took part in Balikatan, a record for an annual military exercise between the Americans and the Tagalogs.  According to Manila’s statement, the interaction between the US, Philippine and Australian Armed Forces will be even bigger in 2024. What’s more, this year’s joint military exercise will take place in the Philippines’ northern islands, which are just 150 kilometres (93 nautical miles) from Taiwan. Already this weekend, military officials from the three countries will travel to the uninhabited…

The state visit of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to Vietnam took place on 29-30 January this year. This event in itself and the various circumstances surrounding it deserve at least a brief and very general commentary. Mainly because it is a remarkable act in the relations between two important countries of the South-East Asia sub-region, where the current stage of the “Big World Game” with the participation of the leading world powers, i.e. China and the USA, is developing with particular acuteness. The presence of new emerging significant players is becoming more and more…

The contemporary world is rife with strategic competition and wars between the global south and the global north. The United States is at the center of all these wars and competition. The most significant and threatening competition in the world is between the United States and China. Both countries are engaged in strengthening their power by gathering allies around the world. Taiwan’s issue is considered the boiling point between Sino-US relations. This issue holds the potential to commence a war between China and the United States…

On January 16th, President Biden of the United States invited leaders of the US Congress to meet with him to discuss military assistance to Ukraine and Taiwan. On July 29^th, 2023, the USA announced that it was providing a military aid package to Taiwan of 345 million dollars to be used to allocate already existing US stockpiles of weapons and ammunition including missile, manpad air defence systems, intelligence and surveillance equipment to “maintain Taiwan’s self-defence against China”…

While a mid-November meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden in San Francisco was interpreted by some as a thawing in relations between China and the US, Washington continues onward, expanding its policy of encircling and containing the rise of China through economic, diplomatic, and military means. The most likely explanation for US overtures toward China, precipitating the recent meeting, is Washington’s familiar game of seeking to appear to be pursuing diplomacy all while actually undermining it…

Fumio Kishida, Prime Minister of Japan, conducted a second quick tour of the Southeast Asian sub-region from November 3 to November 5. Malaysia and the Philippines were the nations that were visited this time. Tokyo’s priority on fortifying its position in the sub-region as a whole was reaffirmed by the tour, even if specific bilateral concerns were discussed in each of these countries. Tokyo, for its part, views that as a crucial middle link in the larger “south-westward movement” of Japanese foreign policy, which has been noticed for a long time by the NEO…

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s policy of rapprochement with the United States is destroying Philippine-Chinese relations. To date, the level of interaction between countries has dropped to its lowest level over the past decade. The cause of the discord was a new round of escalation of the territorial dispute over a number of islands of the Spratly (Nansha) archipelago in the South China Sea…