With the Philippines, the US is completing an arc of military bases around China

You are we Closed, Thurs, 2, agreement with Filipino To get to four military bases in the archipelago country, complete the arc about China. With the additional bases, the US military will be able to monitor the Chinese in and around the South China Sea Taiwan.

The Philippines was the only thing that filled a gap in the arc of Washington’s alliances, which it stretched through South Korea And Japanin North Asia, to Australia, in the south. The country borders two of the largest potential hotspots in the region: Taiwan and the South China Sea.

The agreement also partly reflects the US withdrawal from its former colony, more than 30 years ago. In the 1980s, the Philippines was home to 15,000 US soldiers and two of the largest US military bases in Asia.

+ To protect itself from China, Taiwan allows women to reserve in the military

While it already had limited access to five sites in the archipelago under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), Washington said in a statement that the new bases “will enable faster humanitarian and climate disaster support in the Philippines, and respond to other common challenges,” a thinly veiled reference to tensions. with china.

The statement came after US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin met Philippine President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. in Manila on Thursday.

+ The President of the Czech Republic calls on Taiwan and challenges China

US officials have not specified the location of the new bases, but three of them are expected to be on the northernmost island of Luzon in the Philippines, the only large sliver of land close to Taiwan.