The risk of a confrontation between the United States and China over the Philippines is growing. The Philippines is an American treaty defense ally, similar to NATO and Japan .
That matters because Chinese coast guard vessels caused willful structural damage to Philippine vessels in the Sabina Shoal and a Chinese fighter jet dropped flares into the path of a Philippine aircraft near Scarborough Shoal in recent days. These incidents have occurred within waters and airspace recognized by just about every nation except for China as being within the Philippines’s exclusive economic zone.
These incidents are only the tip of a much larger iceberg of rising Chinese aggression against the Philippines.
At the Scarborough Shoal in July , for example, the Chinese coast guard boarded Philippine coast guard boats, stole equipment, and damaged the vessels. China has also shone high-intensity laser beams and fired water cannons at Philippine vessels and dangerously obstructed them. The Scarborough Shoal is 122 miles west of the Philippines and 710 miles south of China's Hainan Island. Beijing absurdly claims these waters and all that is below, above, and moving through them as its own. Indeed, China unjustifiably claims the near entirety of the South China Sea as its private swimming pool.
Responding to China's aggression against an American ally, President Joe Biden has repeatedly pledged that the U.S. defense commitment to the Philippines is “ironclad.” The Biden administration also deserves credit for negotiating access to bases in the Philippines that offer great utility to any war effort in support of Taiwan. The problem is that China clearly senses it can keep escalating against the Philippines without suffering U.S. retaliation. That must change.
To fix things, the Pentagon must more obviously prioritize key resources in the Pacific. The U.S. plainly lacks a sufficient force posture in the Pacific. China just proved as much by deploying an aircraft carrier into waters intersecting the Philippines, Japanese islands, and Taiwan. In contrast, the U.S. has no aircraft carriers in the Pacific because the aircraft carrier that is supposed to be in the Pacific was diverted to the Arabian Sea to deter Iran. Alaska-based F-22 air superiority fighter jets have also been deployed to Europe for the same reason. Many of the Navy’s Arleigh Burke destroyers are similarly now deployed to the Middle East.
Posture is one side of the coin, presence is the other.
In that vein, the Navy must make more frequent and more potent displays of support for the Philippines. That means powerful U.S. warships escorting Philippine vessels on resupply operations in contested waters. It means more aircraft carrier deployments that see the carriers’ air wings conducting armed overflights of Chinese coast guard vessels. The more recent U.S. responses to China’s aggression have been inadequate. They have centered on occasional deployments of Littoral Combat Ships. But the choice of these ships seems designed to broadcast absolute American disinterest in escalation with China. After all, Washington knows that Beijing knows the Littoral Combat Ships would be worse than useless in a confrontation.
Adm. Sam Paparo, commander of Indo-Pacific Command, offered positive momentum toward the possibility of escorts this week. Asked whether escorts were possible, he responded, "Certainly, within the context of consultations, every option between the two sovereign nations in terms of our mutual defense, escort of one vessel to the other, is an entirely reasonable option within our Mutual Defense Treaty."
If these deployments restrict the U.S. ability to conduct military operations elsewhere, so be it. The need to accept this resource strain is underlined by the current diversion of the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier from the Pacific to the Middle East. While that deployment has allowed the U.S. to better deter Iran, it has also opened up the South China Sea and the Philippine Sea to the Chinese military. And where the Navy is useful in the Middle East, it provides priceless utility in the Pacific.
We need to get real here. The prospect of China, America’s preeminent adversary, successfully undermining the territorial rights and political sovereignty of an American treaty defense ally is utterly untenable. Yes, a bolstered show of American force would risk confrontation with China. Still, there are reasons to think it would deter Beijing from escalating further.
For a start, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s priority foreign policy interest remains China's securing of dominion over Taiwan. For Xi, Taiwan is the exigent question of both his destiny and that of the Chinese Communist Party. He would be unlikely to risk his military on a confrontation with the U.S. in the South China Sea that would significantly degrade his means of conquering Taiwan in the East China Sea. As an extension, the Chinese military would face far greater naval and air warfare challenges in a South China Sea conflict than would be the case in a conflict with the U.S. over Taiwan.
In that latter scenario, China would be able to project power from the Chinese mainland many hundreds of miles away. While the 81-mile distance between Taiwan and China complicates amphibious landing operations, it also facilitates the efficient rearming, refueling, repairing, and redeployment of Chinese forces. At the same time, that geography makes it far harder for the U.S. military to project its own forces close to Taiwan with freedom of action.
In contrast, Chinese forces conducting combat operations in the Scarborough Shoal and Spratly Island Chain would be doing so far away from their home bases. In a reversal of the Taiwan conflict dynamic, it would be the U.S. and the Philippines that had the advantage of projecting power from the land and efficiently resupplying. The U.S. could litter the Philippines with anti-air and anti-ship missile systems. The U.S. Air Force could use Philippine bases to launch high-intensity operations across relatively small distances. With no obvious allies to support them, the Chinese military would risk finding the southern South China Sea to be a cauldron of chaos in which it lacked targeting intelligence, armaments, reinforcements, and resupply.
Once it had defeated a critical mass of the Chinese forces deployed to the South China Sea, the U.S. might credibly be able to force a Chinese retreat. Lacking a concentration of forces in the South China Sea, any attempt to return from China to southern areas of the South China Sea would require Chinese forces to navigate a minefield of American air and naval power.
This isn't simply a question of military means, however. American leaders must underline to Americans what's at stake in the South China Sea.
To accept what China is now doing without riposte would be to accept the displacement of the American alliance structure in the Pacific. It would thus also be the first step toward China’s control over the South China Sea's multitrillion-dollar annual trade flows. Demanding political obedience from Pacific nations as the price for their continued trade, China would establish itself as an unquestioned imperial hegemon. America's word would have been proven impotent. China would thus have both much-bolstered means and an incentive to threaten Taiwan, Japan, Australia, and Guam. Xi would surely regard his unchallenged subjugation of the Philippines as proof positive of American timidity.
The problem is that such political leadership is presently lacking. Biden appears more interested in securing a legacy visit to China before leaving office than in assisting the Philippines. This preference of personal interest over national security policy will further encourage Beijing’s belief that American leaders can be made malleable by stroking their personal egos. And the same consideration applies to those seeking to replace Biden. Vice President Kamala Harris’s team is now centered on China doves . In a similar fashion, former President Donald Trump recently expressed doubt over whether Taiwan was worthy of American defense. Trump temporarily fell for Chinese flattery when he was feted with royal treatment during a 2017 visit to Beijing. Expect Xi to replicate that strategy if Trump returns to office.
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Put simply, the time for American action is now.
The Philippines is a historic ally that is facing unmistakable aggression by China. Beijing clearly senses that America is distracted and unwilling to bear contemplation of hard choices. The U.S. must decisively alter that perception. If not, Washington should wave goodbye to the Pacific alliance structure and all the great prosperity and peace that it has long proffered.
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