MANILA: US Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday assured the Philippines’ President Ferdinand Marcos Jr that the United States has an unwavering commitment to his country.
They spoke during Harris’s visit to the archipelagic country in Southeast Asia, aimed at countering China and rebuilding relations that were fractured over human rights abuses in the Philippines.
Kamala Harris’s visit signaled the strengthening of relations between the old allies after years of cold relations under the pro-Beijing former president of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte. It is also the highest-ranking US official’s visit to the country since President Marcos took power in June.
Harris also held a meeting with the Philippine vice president Sara Duterte, the daughter of the ex-president whose lethal drug war triggered international allegations of alleged human rights violations.
US Stands With Philippines in Any Aggression
At the outset of the meeting in the presidential palace in the capital Manila, Harris said that the United States stood with Marcos in defense of international rules and norms related to the South China Sea. If the Philippine armed forces, aircraft, or public vessels were attacked in the South China Sea, it would invoke the United States’ mutual defense commitment.
On his part, Marcos said that he did not see a future for his country that is without the United States.
The US has a long and complex history of relations with the Philippines and the Marcos family. Marcos’s dictator father ruled the country with the support of the United States and he was a Cold War US ally.
Bilateral relations frosted under the bombastic Duterte who called the former US president Barack Obama a “son of a whore” in 2016. His derogatory comments had come after the warnings that Obama would question him over his controversial drug war.
Washington tries to rebuild ties with Manila
However, Washington is now trying to rebuild relations after the new president in Manila.
Its proposal includes a mutual defense treaty and the revival of a 2014 deal EDCA, which allows the US military to store defense equipment and supplies on five bases in the Philippines. Under the deal, the US forces can also rotate through these bases.
In the Duterte era, the agreement was stopped, but now both counties are willing to accelerate its implementation as China becomes very assertive in the region.
A US official informed journalists on condition of not being named, that the United States had identified new locations and a process had begun with the Philippines to finalize them.
Kamala Harris will visit Palawan Island
The Philippines island Palawan on Tuesday, which is bordered by the hotly contested area in the South China Sea.
China claims sovereignty over almost the entire South China Sea, while the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Brunei also have claims to some parts of it.
Harris will see the Philippine Coast Guard on board one of its two biggest boats in the sea. She will also give a speech on the occasion.
It is to be noted that the Vice President’s visit is part of the Super Power’s efforts to remove doubts about its commitment to the Asia-Pacific region when China is increasingly expanding its sphere of influence.
Biden, Xi meeting
US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping held a meeting last week.
A White House official said that Harris reinforced the President’s message that the lines of communication must be maintained open to manage the competition between the two superpowers in a responsible way.
Greg Poling, Director of the US-based Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, said that Harris’s visit to the island would likely infuriate China but the US had more to achieve from sending a reassuring message to the Philippines.
China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said while responding to a question about Harris’s visit to Palawan that Beijing had no objection to US visits in Asia but they should be helpful to peace and stability in the region and should not undercut the other countries’ interests. –APP/AFP
