SEOUL, South Korea — Secretary of State Antony Blinken, visiting the Philippines on Tuesday, reaffirmed Washington’s “ironclad” commitment to Manila’s defense in the face of rising friction with China and talked up an upcoming trilateral summit with regional power Japan.

The first-ever joint meeting between the leaders of Japan, the Philippines and the U.S. will take place on April 11. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. will travel to Washington to meet with President Biden, U.S. and Filipino officials said.

“These are three countries that have a shared vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific,” Mr. Blinken told a press conference in Manila Tuesday, “and I think a recognition that when we work together, when we collaborate, when we pool our resources — including in terms of economic cooperation, building critical infrastructure, humanitarian assistance – we are stronger when we do it together and bring together all the complementarities that we have.”

Deep in the background of Tuesday’s summit is a series of basing agreements that the Biden administration has negotiated with the Marcos government that grants U.S. forces access to strategic posts in the region, notably for any future defense of Taiwan.

Looming over Mr. Blinken’s trip Tuesday were a series of recent clashes in contested waters west of the Philippines between Philippine and Chinese vessels. Though Mr. Blinken made clear that the United States remains committed by treaty to the Philippines’ defense against armed attack, he did not address what military analysts call Beijing’s recent “gray-zone” tactics, conducted below the threshold of “armed attack.”

While the Philippines contends with Chinese maneuvers off Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea, Japan faces similar issues with Chinese hybrid tactics around the disputed Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, which China calls the Diaoyu Islands.

Some expect the upcoming trilateral summit to include measures to build up the domestic capacities of Philippine forces — a country with tiny defense expenditures and maritime assets compared to China.

However, both Mr. Blinken and his Philippine counterpart, Enrique Manalo, alluded to a far more ambitious, longer-term project, helping increase the overall economic muscle of the Philippines, a country that ranks behind fellow ASEAN nations such as Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam in per capita income. 

• Andrew Salmon can be reached at asalmon@washingtontimes.com.