By John Victor D. Ordoñez, Reporter
THE PHILIPPINE military’s plan to acquire the United States; mid-range Typhon missile system will not fuel an arms race in the region despite China’s opposition and calls for the Southeast Asian nation to return to “peaceful development,” security analysts said at the weekend.
“The Typhon missile system would add a key deterrent to the Philippines’ military arsenal by giving it the capability to target China’s southern bases at risk,” Raymond M. Powell, a fellow at Stanford University’s Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation, said in an X message.
“Beijing’s reaction to the mere prospects of this acquisition indicate how seriously it takes it. China’s imperialist ambitions depend on its neighbors remaining weak and vulnerable to its coercion.”
The Chinese Foreign Ministry last week urged the Philippines to return to “peaceful development” after the country’s decision to deploy the missile system, which Washington first flew to Manila in April in what it called a “historic first.”
China and Russia have criticized the move to keep the system in the Philippines after the military drills, saying it could fuel an arms race in the region.
“By cooperating with the United States in the introduction of Typhon, the Philippine side has surrendered its own security and national defense to others and introduced the risk of geopolitical confrontation and an arms race in the region, posing a substantial threat to regional peace and security,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning earlier in a news briefing in Beijing.
Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Gerardo C. Teodoro, Jr. earlier said Manila will not be a “doorstep” and that acquiring the missile system was within the country’s “prerogative” to enhance its defense capabilities.
The missile system is a land-based, ground-launched system that “enhances multi-domain fires” that can fire the Standard Missile 6 (SM-6) and the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile, according to the US Army Pacific. It also has a battery operations center, four launchers, prime movers, and modified trailers.
The “proposed acquisition of Typhon missiles can strengthen the alliance with the US and enhance defense partnership with likeminded states like Japan, South Korea, and Australia,” Rommel C. Banlaoi, president of the Philippine Society for International Security Studies said in a Viber message.
China and the Philippines have been at loggerheads over confrontations near disputed features in the South China Sea, with Manila accusing China’s coast guard of aggression and Beijing furious over what it calls repeated provocations and territorial incursions.
Just this Sunday, Reuters reported that Chinese naval and air forces conducted combat readiness patrols near the disputed Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea, according to a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) statement.
The patrols were to “further strengthen the control of relevant sea and airspace, resolutely defend national sovereignty and security” in the South China Sea, the PLA Southern Theater Command said in a social media announcement.
The United Nations-backed Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague in 2016 voided China’s claim over the waterway for being illegal. Beijing has ignored the ruling.
Beijing has no jurisdiction over Scarborough Shoal, based on the ruling and Article 121 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea which classified it as a rock.
“What the Philippines is doing is in line with the mandate of the government, which is to maximize all efforts to defend Philippine sovereignty and sovereign rights based on international law,” Don McLain Gill, who teaches foreign relations at De La Salle University, said in a Facebook Messenger chat.
Chester B. Cabalza, founding president of Manila-based International Development and Security Cooperation, also said in a Facebook Messenger chat that the acquisition of the missile system falls within the military and sovereign right of the Philippines “aimed at strengthening its national defense and security.” — with Reuters