U.S. Apache helicopters maneuver during a live-fire drill as part of U.S.-Philippine military exercises in Aparri, Philippines, on May 3. (Daniel Ceng/Anadolu/Getty Images)
By Rebecca Tan, Frances Mangosing and Pei-Lin Wu
MANILA — Faced with intensifying Chinese encroachment at sea, the Philippines increasingly sees its national security as intertwined with that of Taiwan and is quietly ramping up both formal and informal engagement with the self-governing island, including on security, according to government officials, defense analysts and diplomats here.
This marks a significant departure from Manila’s conservative approach toward Taiwan and could pave the way for the Philippines, a U.S. treaty ally, to play a bigger role if China makes good on its threats to invade Taiwan.
“Any force projection of China within our area is a matter of extreme concern,” Philippine Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro said in an interview Thursday.
While Manila still observes the one-China policy stipulating that there is only one Chinese government — the People’s Republic of China — the fates of the Philippines and Taiwan are increasingly enmeshed, he said.
“It would be hiding from the obvious to say that Taiwan’s security will not affect us,” added Teodoro, who recently endorsed a Japanese proposal to view the East China Sea, the South China Sea and the Korean Peninsula as a single “theater” of battle.
China and the Philippines have clashed with rising intensity in the South China Sea, a strategic waterway that China has claimed in its entirety over the competing claims of six other governments, including the Philippines and Taiwan. The number of Chinese vessels in waters off the western coast of the Philippines has increased markedly in the past year, along with cybersecurity attacks, espionage and other threats emanating from Beijing, according to the Philippine national security council.
The Philippines is entitled to negotiate its relationship with Taiwan in response to these changes, Teodoro said. This may anger China, but, in Manila’s experience, previous attempts to appease its powerful neighbor have gone nowhere, he added.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in April loosened decades-old restrictions on government personnel engaging with Taiwanese officials and issued a directive allowing visa-free entry for Taiwanese nationals — changes that Taiwan had sought for years.
Officially, the Philippine government said this was aimed at boosting Taiwanese investment and tourism. But in interviews, officials said it also serves to support a push by both governments to increase security cooperation, which is further along than publicly disclosed.
According to government officials and advisers from the Philippines and Taiwan — who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share sensitive details of engagement that have not been previously reported — Philippine academics close to the defense establishment early this year participated in closed-door forums with high-ranking Taiwanese generals to familiarize themselves with Taiwanese security thinking.
The Philippine coast guard recently carried out patrols alongside the Taiwanese coast guard in the Bashi Channel, the waterway between the two jurisdictions, the officials and advisers said.
And last month, observers from Taiwan’s navy and marine corps were present during a joint exercise led by U.S. and Philippine marines, they said.
During the exercise, named Kamandag, U.S., Philippine and Japanese troops practiced launching anti-ship missiles off the Batenes islands, the northernmost tip of the Philippines, less than 130 miles from the southern tip of Taiwan. Though Philippine forces have said the exercises were not aimed at any country, defense analysts said it was clear they were drills to counter Chinese ships in the case of an invasion of Taiwan.
Taiwanese personnel did not officially participate but were involved in tabletop planning and watched in real time as cooperation unfolded among the U.S. allies, said a Taiwanese government adviser. “Our security and military cooperation with the Philippines is going to get closer and closer,” he added.
Chinese officials have protested the growing relationship between the Philippines and Taiwan at every stage, said Philippine officials and diplomats from U.S.-allied countries. In April, when the chief of staff of the Philippine armed forces, Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr., was unknowingly caught on video telling troops to prepare themselves for an invasion of Taiwan, China’s Foreign Ministry warned the Philippines against overstepping.
“The Taiwan question … is at the core of China’s core interest,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said. “We urge certain people in the Philippines to refrain from making provocations and playing with fire on the Taiwan question.”
More recently, in response to the deployment of advanced American missile systems in the Philippines, Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Zhang Xiaogang said Manila has “tied itself to the U.S. war chariot and become a co-conspirator in destabilizing the region.”
Philippine officials say they are aware that some countries in Southeast Asia — including Malaysia, which currently chairs the Association of Southeast Asian Nations — are uneasy with Manila’s newfound rapport with Taipei, which they fear will draw the region deeper into a potential U.S.-China war.
But there’s widening consensus among Philippine policymakers, including from cautious factions of the foreign policy establishment, that the country has no choice, said Don McLain Gill, a geopolitical analyst and lecturer at De La Salle University in Manila.
“If there was a way for us to look the other way, we would,” said Gill. “But as things stand, we’d be kidding ourselves not to see the necessity of working with Taiwan.”
There are more than 150,000 Philippine migrant workers on the island who would need to be evacuated in the case of an invasion, along with nationals of other countries fleeing southward. The Philippines’ mutual defense treaty with the U.S. means the country would probably be involved in any American military response, analysts say.
In 2023, the U.S. secured access to four new military sites in the Philippines, three of them on the northern island of Luzon. Philippine officials have not said whether they would allow these sites to be used as a staging ground for a defense of Taiwan.
But it’s a contingency that has to be plotted out among partners, said Rommel Jude G. Ong, a professor at the Ateneo School of Government in Manila and a retired rear admiral in the Philippine navy.
It’s in the interest of the Philippines to preserve Taiwan’s status quo, Ong said. “Taiwan is our buffer from an expansionist China.”
Though China’s strategic thinkers have largely regarded the Philippines as a puppet of the U.S., it is Beijing’s actions that have been the most influential in driving Manila to change its approach toward Taiwan, said Greg Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Chinese ships have rammed, swarmed and pounded Philippine vessels in waters off the western coast of the Philippines, including in an intense confrontation in June last year when Chinese personnel wielding knives and machetes boarded Philippine boats. It was after this incident, Philippine officials said, that engagement with Taiwanese leaders picked up across multiple agencies.
“I’m not sure Beijing fully anticipated that its actions would drive this outcome,” said Poling.
Still, analysts and officials acknowledge this is a sensitive relationship. A recent incident illustrates the stakes: A Philippine coast guard official and navy official in early July attended a forum on maritime affairs in Taiwan and met with various leaders, including President Lai Ching-te, who has vowed to repel Chinese aggression, angering Beijing.
Though the two Philippine officials said they were not traveling in their official capacities, they spoke to local reporters and were described in the Taipei Times as a “high-profile delegation” from the Philippines. Diplomats from both governments were caught off guard.
In a strongly worded letter, which has not been previously reported, Philippine Foreign Secretary Theresa P. Lazaro said the two traveling officials had not acted prudently.
“These actions cause severe diplomatic complications that could derail current efforts, under the guidance of the President, to stabilize our bilateral relations with China,” she wrote in the July 4 letter to the heads of the Philippine Defense Department and coast guard, a copy of which was obtained by The Post.
While there are clear “inconveniences” in the relationship, there is momentum driving closer ties, said Wang Ting-yu, a lawmaker from Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party and a member of the parliament’s foreign affairs and defense committee.
Strategists from the two governments want to increase cooperation between their coast guards, including by carrying out joint patrols. They also want to increase intelligence sharing, particularly on Chinese ship activity as well as Chinese cybersecurity threats and espionage, officials said.
Until recently, the relationship between Taiwan and the Philippines could be described as “close strangers” — geographically proximate but diplomatically distant, Wang said. No longer. “The strangers,” said Wang, “have started to smile at each other.”
