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…

With the rise of China, so too rises Southeast Asia. Southeast Asia has slowly transformed in terms of economics, infrastructure, tourism, industry, and politically over the last two decades as Chinese influence increases and inevitably displaces US influence over the region. At its height, US influence resulted in a major war spanning two decades, engulfing Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. The US maintained military bases across the region, including in Thailand and the Philippines. However, when the US finally lost its war against Vietnam, it withdrew much of its military…

Despite gaining independence in 1946, the Philippines is still under US political and security control, remaining a US bridgehead in the southern part of the Asia-Pacific region. The sustained military presence of Washington was a requirement for the island country’s freedom. Under the Treaty on Military Bases, the Philippine government relinquished control of 23 military reservations totaling 4,000 square kilometers, or 1.3 percent of the country’s land area. Tens of thousands of American troops were stationed there. In the years that followed, the territory under US control dwindled progressively, but essential facilities remained, the most important of which were the Naval Base Subic Bay facility fit even for nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, and Clark Air Base facility, capable of hosting B-52 strategic bombers…

Cooperation of Philippines with the USA and its closest Asia-Pacific region allies is rapidly growing. And just as the international community barely got used to the March news about the number of bases in the Philippines which the USA has access to increasing to nine, as well as about the possibility of Japan and Australia fully joining the military cooperation with the Philippines, on May 31 the Japanese media reported that the defense ministers of Japan, the USA, Australia and the Philippines will hold four-party negotiations at the international forum on security…

On April 30, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the president of the Philippines, departed for a five-day trip to the United States of America. In a way, the trip served as the culmination of a number of in-depth assessments designed to probe the stance of all three significant players in the region who form the field of power in which the Philippines must somehow function. Early in January, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. traveled to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. A month later, he was welcomed in Tokyo by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. However, it should be emphasized that, in the context of the aforementioned probing process…

In the period from February 8 to 12 this year, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the son of one of the country’s most prominent politicians of the second half of the last century (and also President) Ferdinand Marcos Sr., was on an official visit to Japan. What was the third event of regional significance in just one month to focus on the Philippines...

From January 3 to 5, 2023, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. was on a visit to China at the invitation of Chinese leader Xi Jinping. In itself, this fact has taken an important place in the list of events developing in Southeast Asia, which is characterized by an intensifying all-round struggle between the leading world powers...