(Washington Composite Electric) A senior official in the Philippines said that during the visit of the US Minister of Defense Austin, the two sides were expected to reach an agreement to allow the US military to settle in more local military bases.
Austin arrived in Manila on Tuesday (January 31) in the Philippines.He will meet the Philippine President President Markus, the National Defense Minister Gavis and the national security consultant Arno.
In order to compete China, Washington hopes to expand the U.S. military's use permissions in the Philippine military base, while Manila hopes to fight against China in the South China Sea sovereign dispute with the help of the United States.
U.S. officials said that Washington has proposed to Manila to incorporate more Philippine military bases into the US -Philippine enhanced defense cooperation agreement.Based on this 2014 agreement, the Philippines opened five military bases, allowing U.S. military to rotate, conduct joint military training, store and deploy weapons, and build military facilities.
The United States requires another four or five bases
A senior official of the Philippines that unnamed names revealed on Wednesday that the United States demanded another four or five in the Philippine military base that the US military can use.He said: "We will definitely have some kind of announcement, but I don’t know how many (bases are open) in the end."
The official said that the premise that the opening of more military bases allows the U.S. military to use is that they must be beneficial to the Philippines and the United States."We don't want this to (improve) the United States' defense capabilities ... this must be mutually beneficial ... and obviously, we must prevent other countries from seeing our actions as certain disputes."
Reuters reports that the Philippines explores the open Philippine military affairs base, four in Luzon Island in the north, and one in Balawed Island western.Luzon Island is the Philippine territory closest to Taiwan, and Balawwa is the Nansha Islands with sovereignty disputes.
Washington Think Tank Strategy and International Research Center Southeast Asia Expert Porin pointed out that if the U.S. military can deploy missiles on the military base of Luzon Island, it will help the United States to play a deterrent role in the United States and curb Beijing's martial arts against Taiwan.Manila is particularly concerned about how to defend the sovereignty of the Philippines in the South China Sea.
Austin will meet with the Philippine Defense Defense Garvis and other officials on Thursday.He left a message in Twitter that Meifei will "strengthen a solid bilateral relationship, discuss a series of security initiatives, and promote the common vision of maintaining freely and opening up in the Pacific."
Austin went to Sambaoyan City, Mianlan Island in the south on Wednesday morning to visit the local U.S. military.Gariro, commander of the Old Island Command of the West Mianlan, told reporters that the Philippine Army and the U.S. military "work very firmly". The U.S. military assisted the Philippine Army to fight terrorism, launch humanitarian assistance and disaster relief missions.
