SEOUL, South Korea — Japan and the Philippines signed a bilateral security deal Monday, part of a growing net of relationships between U.S. allied democracies across and beyond the Indo-Pacific region.
The deal is expected to accelerate bilateral defense ties between the two nations, which have both clashed in heated maritime territorial disputes with China in recent years.
The Reciprocal Access Agreement, designed to promote the smooth bilateral transfer of manpower, equipment and arms, was signed in Manila, with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. looking on as Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa and Philippine Defense Minister Gilberto Teodoro officially approved the deal.
Ms. Kamikawa hailed it as “a landmark achievement,” while Mr. Teodoro called it a “milestone in our shared endeavor to ensure a rules-based international order.”
A “two-plus-two” meeting between both nations’ defense and foreign ministers was held after the signing, which took place at the presidential palace.
With U.S. forces stretched by missions around the world at a time when China is massively building up naval power in the region, the Biden administration has sought to expand defense partnerships between East Asia’s democracies, which lack any kind of overarching NATO-style multilateral alliance.
Monday’s deal drew immediate approval from Washington.
“Another layer in the latticework of Indo-Pacific security partnerships,” U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel wrote on the social media site X. “Coming on the heels of Japan’s provision of coast guard ships to the Philippines, the historical reciprocal access agreement just signed between two of our allies not only boosts their cooperation and capabilities but also reinforces our collective deterrence and commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
Long-pacifist Japan, home base to 54,000 U.S. troops, America’s largest single overseas deployment,is emerging as a new linchpin for security partnerships for the states around the region facing new pressure from Beijing.
Japan is suspicious of China, amicable toward Taiwan and deeply concerned by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The country’s military is muscling up, notably in the naval sphere with marines and light carriers, and in the skies, with the largest non-U.S. order of F-35s stealth fighters and an ongoing force of long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles.
While the Philippines and China have clashed — at times violently — over territorial claims in the South China Sea, Japan is facing a similar hybrid challenge from China in the East China Sea. Manila is struggling to control the encroachment from Chinese fishing fleets and Coast Guard units off a hotly disputed shoal, while Japan is seeing a similar pattern in the disputed Senaku/Diaoyu Islands.
The Philippines has visiting troop agreements with Australia and the United States. Manila, like Japan, also has a mutual defense treaty with Washington.
Monday’s reciprocal access agreement is the third such deal Japan has struck. After extensive negotiations, Tokyo’s first such deal was signed with Canberra in 2022. Tokyo used that benchmark as a framework for another mutual access accord with the UK in 2023 and is in talks for a similar deal with French defense officials.
A reciprocal access agreement is not a mutual defense treaty, designed instead to enable the smooth transfer of manpower, equipment and weapons between the states, enabling personnel, vessel and unit exchanges and exercises.
In the decades since World War II Japan has been loath to export military arms and other defense products, but under its new Overseas Defense Aid package — of which the Philippines is the first recipient — it is currently supplying Manila with Coast Guard vessels and offshore radars.
Backed by a government loan, Japanese contractors are currently building five more 97-meter Coast Guard vessels for the Philippines, which has faced attacks from China’s large Coast Guard in recent incidents.
Analysts say the U.S. Navy, despite a powerful presence in the region, is not well suited to respond now to the hybrid tactics short of open war that Beijing has been employing. Analysts told a U.S. congressional hearing last month said the U.S. Coast Guard has that kind of expertise — but that it lacks the manpower, equipment and reach to patrol the East Asian theater.
“The USGC’s primary focus and missions are much closer to U.S. territory than the Western Pacific and competition with China,” said Drew Thompson a former U.S. defense official who is now a research fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. “They are not designed to be a symmetrical force to confront China.”
The Japan-Philippines deal was signed just a day before the NATO Summit was due to kick off in Washington. The leaders of Japan, New Zealand and South Korea will be joining that summit, though Australia’s prime minister declined his invitation.
• Andrew Salmon can be reached at asalmon@washingtontimes.com.