On Monday, Nov. 21, the Baker Center held another Global Security Lecture featuring Renato Cruz De Castro, senior professor of International Studies, at De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines.
The lecture, titled “The South China Sea Dispute: US - Philippines - China Security Relations,” was held in the Toyota Auditorium at 5:30 p.m.
In his lecture, De Castro spoke on the geopolitics of the U.S.-Philippine alliance. Historically, these two countries have had strong relations, and the Philippines is one of the oldest Asian alliances as well as a major non-NATO ally.
The Philippines is a small power that relies on the U.S. as an ally over China, because there would be too many territorial disputes between the two neighboring countries. The purpose of U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia is to establish a balance of power, which counters China.
The idea of a balance of power as it relates to international relations is the theory that countries make and remake alliances so that not one state is stronger than the other.
These relations are particularly relevant considering China’s maritime expansion efforts in the South China Sea. China is attempting to develop a blue-water navy, allowing its naval force to expand far beyond Chinese borders, and it has also been building artificial islands in the South China Sea for military bases.
“There’s now a growing view in Washington that China’s behavior toward the Philippines is a reflection of how China would be behaving in the future: assertive, militant, and, of course, expansive,” De Castro said.
This conflict is just one in a series of historical territorial disputes between China and neighboring countries, including Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines.
“We are aware that no amount of resources will enable the Philippines to address the overall strategic imbalance between the Philippines and China,” De Castro said. “So this is where, of course, the (U.S.-Philippine) alliance comes in.”
The alliance is shown through both the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) and the Mutual Defense Treaty. EDCA is an agreement that allows the U.S. to rotate troops into the Philippines for extended stays and permits the U.S. to build and operate facilities on Philippine bases for both countries’ forces. Furthermore, the Mutual Defense Treaty states that any attack on the Philippines would be considered an attack on the U.S. However, unlike NATO, the treaty does not require the U.S. to immediately respond.
However, these relations have been strained by Rodrigo Duterte’s Administration. Duterte, the current President of the Philippines who holds anti-American sentiments, has stated in the past he was seeking alliances with Russia and China and was terminating the Philippine-U.S. joint patrols in the South China Sea. After he made these statements, he backtracked, claiming he only sought an economic alliance with China, not a militaristic one.
Krista Wiegand, director of the Global Security Program and who was responsible for inviting De Castro, expressed her thoughts on the importance of understanding these relations.
“Regardless of what President-elect Trump does with his policies, what happens in East Asia and the Pacific with China, Japan, the Philippines, all of those countries, economically, but also militarily, really matters to the U.S.,” Wiegand said. “So it’s really critical for Americans to understand that our relationship with Asia is really important … The U.S. has this really special relationship with the Philippines.”
De Castro earned his doctorate from the University of South Carolina as a Fulbright Scholar in 2001. He has previously held lectures at the National Defense College of the Philippines on International Relations and Security. Currently, he is the U.S.-ASEAN Fulbright Initiative Researcher for the Philippines based in Washington, D.C.
His research interests include the international politics of East Asia, security relations between the U.S. and Philippines, Philippine defense and foreign policies and U.S. defense and foreign policies in East Asia. He has written more than 80 articles on international relations and security, which have been published in scholarly journals across the world, including the Philippines, South Korea, Canada, Malaysia, France, Singapore, Taiwan, Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia and the U.S.
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