Lithuania and the Philippines signed an agreement to build a security alliance resulting from their mutual alarm over what they perceive as growing aggression threatening their regions by countries such as China.
The memorandum of understanding signed in Manila by Lithuanian Defense Minister Dovilė Šakalienė and Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. calls for cooperation particularly in cybersecurity, defense industries, munitions production and maritime security, the Philippine National Defense Department said.
Šakalienė said her nation is alarmed over an emerging “authoritarian axis” of China, Iran, North Korea and Russia, a concern she raised weeks earlier at an international defense forum in Singapore.
“What we see now is that authoritarian states are really cooperating very efficiently,” Šakalienė said at a news conference with Teodoro. “One of the worst results is the cooperation on Ukraine.
“Their joint actions are threatening the free world, are threatening the democracy in this world … and we do not have a luxury to allow this to be annihilated,” she said.
Šakalienė cited China’s aggression toward the Philippines in the South China Sea, which Beijing falsely claims as its territory almost in its entirety. Other South China Sea nations, including Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam, have engaged in territorial standoffs, but confrontations between Chinese and Philippine coast guard and naval forces have spiked in recent years.
China’s forces have used water cannons and other dangerous tactics against Philippine government vessels and fishing fleets. Beijing continues to defy a 2016 international arbitration ruling that invalidated China’s expansive claims in the South China Sea.
The Philippines has rallied international support by exposing Beijing’s actions in the disputed waters, a key global trade route.
“We see these horrifying materials, videos of how they are threatening Filipino fishermen, how they are treating people who are simply making their living in their own waters, in their own territory,” Šakalienė said. “If they work together to threaten us, then we must work together to defend ourselves.”
Teodoro cited the need to “resist any unilateral attempts to reword or re-engineer maritime law and the international order to the benefit of new powers that want to dominate the world to the detriment of smaller nations.”
The agreement expands the Philippines’ efforts to build an arc of security alliances, beyond its long-standing treaty alliance with the United States, to boost the country’s territorial defense.
