Manila in spot over new camps to US

The ongoing expansion of the Philippines' military pact with the United States is threatening to upend the Southeast Asian nation's relations with China, as it undermines moves to peacefully resolve disputes over the South China Sea.

In a forum held in Manila on Tuesday, experts from the Philippines and China said that diplomatic bilateral negotiations, such as the Bilateral Consultation Mechanism on the South China Sea, need to be used to resolve tensions over the disputed waters. The two neighboring countries will also need to strengthen existing economic cooperation through increased trade.

The forum was held a day after Manila announced four more military bases that Washington will get access to in line with the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, or EDCA, that was signed in 2014.

These sites are the Naval Base Camilo Osias in Santa Ana, Cagayan; Lal-lo Airport in Lal-lo in the northern Philippine province of Cagayan which faces Taiwan of China; Camp Melchor Dela Cruz in the province of Isabela; and Balabac Island in the southwestern province of Palawan.

Hu Bo, director of the South China Sea Probing Initiative and director of the Center for Maritime Strategy Studies in Peking University, described the move as "100 percent provocation".

He said the expansion of US military access to the Philippines will put the Southeast Asian nation in "the center" of the competition between China and the US. It will also complicate the situation in the South China Sea.

'Center of a conflict'

Victor Corpus, former chief of the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, said expanding US military access to the Philippines will allow the US to store even nuclear weapons in the Southeast Asian nation and provoke China to respond.

"So what will happen to the Philippines? We will be at the center of a conflict between two superpowers," Corpus said. He even warned that the Philippines might likely fall into a "proxy conflict" like Ukraine.

Melissa Loja, senior research fellow at the Integrated Development Studies Institute, a Manila-based think tank, and an expert on international law, said designating new sites is not the problem per se. She said what could be considered as an escalatory move is the requisitioning of weapons and military contractors as well as US troops on those sites.

So regardless of where the sites are, "the requisitioning of weapons and troops would be the escalatory move", Loja said.

"It is important for the Philippines as well as for ordinary citizens like me to define our perspective in the current situation and the first step is to understand that whatever policy we formulate, has to be situated within the great power competition that is now ongoing," Loja said.

"The Philippines is not about to engage in a great power competition with China or the US."

Rommel C. Banlaoi, a national security analyst and president of the Philippines-China Friendship Society, said the new bases are "extremely damaging to Philippine-China relations".

He said most security experts viewed this move as provocative and a betrayal of the mutual understanding that was developed during Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.'s visit to Beijing in January.