Strengthening Manila's Maritime Security Posture in the South China Sea: The Role of the Philippines-Japan Strategic Partnership (original) (raw)
Related papers
This paper seeks to discuss how the Philippine-Japan Strategic Partnership, as a form of security cooperation, complements efforts in promoting peace and stability in the South China Sea (SCS).Although enjoying good ties since the normalization of diplomatic relations in 1956, the Philippines and Japan elevated their bilateral relationship to a higher level of cooperation when they issued Philippine-Japan Strategic Partnership Declaration (PJSPD) in 2011. Four years later, Manila and Tokyo announced that their relations have " entered the state of Strengthened Strategic Partnership. " The strategic partnership between the two US allies is forged against the milieu of an increasingly complex and uncertain security landscape driven largely by an emerging power shift in the region, as manifested in the tensions surrounding maritime and territorial disputes in, among others, the SCS. Against this backdrop this article seeks to address the following questions: 1) What is a strategic partnership?; 2) Why is there a strategic imperative for the Philippines and Japan to forge a strategic partnership?; and 3) How can Manila and Tokyo foster peace and stability in the SCS through the implementation of the PJSPD? Using the strategic partnership framework developed Thomas Wilkins, this paper argues that the Philippine-Japan Strategic Partnership's objective of promoting peace and stability in the SCS is operationalized through the: 1) enhancement of maritime domain awareness; 2) bilateral capacity building initiatives; and 3) coordination of measures in managing the dispute at the multilateral level.
Abstract: The Philippines and Japan have evolved a security partnership in the face of China’s maritime expansion in the South and East China Seas. The two countries pursue this security partnership through regular bilateral consultations among Philippine and Japanese heads of states, political leaders, defense ministry officials, and high-ranking military officers; joint naval exercises; and exploratory discussions for arms transfers and negotiations for a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between Japan and the Philippines. Initially, Article 9 of Japan’s 1947 Constitution hindered this security partnership. However, a recent reinterpretation of the pacifist constitution now allows Japan a collective self-defense “particularly to export arms to its allies and security partners and to deploy the JSDF overseas when necessary. Now, the challenge for Japan and the Philippines is to ensure the viability of their security partnership in the light of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s efforts to improve his country’s relations with China.
How do strategic changes affect small powers? How do small powers adjust to strategic changes? This article addresses these two questions as it examines the strategic shift in the Philippines’ defense policy from internal to maritime security. With China’s naval expansion in the South China Sea, the Philippine government has eased up its counter-insurgency/counter-terrorism campaign and has vigorously pursued instead the modernization of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) particularly in developing the deterrence capability of the Philippine Navy (PN). However, slow-paced and hampered by scant resources, the naval build-up will hardly deter China’s encroachment on the Philippine maritime territory. Faced with this predicament, the Philippines has resorted to forging new security partnerships with the United States and Japan, two major naval powers in East Asia. The paper concludes that maritime security will remain the Philippines’ priority concern way into the third decade of the 21st century.
Jurnal Mandala Jurnal Ilmu Hubungan Internasional, 2018
Nowadays, the South China Sea has been identified with increasing defense spending and military modernization of the neighboring countries which are driven by China’s assertiveness in the region. China’s assertive behavior in the South China Sea is an expression of its growing ambition over the region which is part of its core interests. China’s assertiveness is buoyed by its significant military presence and power projection in the region. Japan and the Philippines are having converging threat perceptions towards China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea as well as sharing common interests to balance the assertive China. Contested with China’s assertive behavior, since 2012, Japan and the Philippines have been conducting dynamic maritime diplomacy in order to safeguard the status quo of the sea from the assertive China. The implementation of Japan-Philippines maritime diplomacy in responding to China’s assertiveness in South China Sea is a form of “proactive approach” by Japan, ...
The Philippine perspective on the security partnership with Japan
The Philippine perspective on the security partnership with Japan
This article examines the external and domestic forces behind the increased security cooperation between the Philippines and Japan, and explores the status of this security partnership. It addresses these two corollary problems: What are the external and domestic factors that account for the increasing security cooperation between the Philippines and Japan? And what is the state of this security partnership? It also looks into these related issues: What is the origin of the Philippine-Japan security partnership? How has China’s maritime expansion in East Asia affected the security policies of these two countries? What are the components of the Philippine-Japan security cooperation? And finally, how will this security partnership evolve in over time?
NDCP Executive Policy Brief, 2018
The aim of this policy brief is to discuss how the National Security Strategy (NSS) seeks to promote Philippine national security interests in the South China Sea (SCS). In particular, this paper seeks to answer the following questions: 1) How does the NSS perceive the regional security environment of the Indo-Asia-Pacific particularly, with respect to the SCS?; 2) How does the NSS articulate Philippine national security interests in the SCS and what are the identified courses of action to pursue such interests?; and 3) What are the challenges in promoting Philippine interests in the SCS?
Pacific Forum Issues & Insights Vol. 23, SR11 , 2023
Chapter 2: The South China Sea (SCS) and Taiwan are potential flashpoints in the Indo-Pacific region. Although the disputes have been ongoing for decades, the strategic competition between the two powers – the United States and China – has added real risk to the overlapping territorial and maritime claims. While there is already a large body of literature on both issues, most analyses on the SCS and Taiwan consider them as two distinct issues. While such an approach is logical and understandable, it is likewise important to explore the linkage between the two issues because they impact each other due to geographical proximity. This paper seeks to answer how can the Philippines-U.S. alliance complement efforts to advance a free and open Indo-Pacific, specifically in the geopolitical nexus of the SCS dispute and cross-Strait relations? This paper also addresses the linkage between the SCS dispute and cross-Strait relations, how such a nexus figures in the overall security of the Indo-Pacific, and how the convergence and divergence of interests in these disputes create policy complexities for Manila and Washington. The aim is to provide policy inputs for courses of action vis-à-vis the challenges the alliance faces amidst great power competition. https://pacforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/US-PH-Volume-2023-Super-Final.pdf