• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Philippines defense minister says U.S. treaty needs comprehensive review

September 8, 2021 by David Barret Leave a Comment

September 8, 2021

By David Brunnstrom and Karen Lema

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said on Wednesday there was a need for a comprehensive review of his country’s alliance with the United States, complaining Manila got less from its relationship with Washington than non-treaty allies despite growing pressure from China.

At an online event to mark the 70th anniversary of the countries’ mutual defense treaty (MDT), Lorenzana said there was a need to “upgrade” and “update” the alliance and to make clear the “extent of American commitments.”

“Some questions being asked in Manila are, do we still need the MDT? Should we amend it?” he told Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, referring to the 1951 pact. “What is clear is that we need a comprehensive review of our alliance.”

Lorenzana, in Washington for meetings with American officials, said the U.S. treaty with Japan, its World War Two enemy, was more explicit than that with Manila when it came to determining whether it applied in the Pacific maritime area, where the Philippines has come under increasing pressure from China over rival territorial claims in the South China Sea.

He said this explained why seven out of 10 Filipinos supported President Rodrigo Duterte’s call for engagement with China rather than confrontation and more than half doubted U.S. reliability as an ally in South China Sea disputes.

Lorenzana said U.S.-Philippines relations would “have to evolve in recognition of new geopolitical realities, most especially the rise of China.”

He said the Manila and Washington should consider revising the MDT and other defense pacts to ensure both could better respond to “gray zone threats” like state-sanctioned maritime militia forces that have been intimidating smaller states.

Manila has repeatedly protested what it calls the “illegal” and “threatening” presence of hundreds of Chinese “maritime militia” vessels https://ift.tt/3l2O28w inside its exclusive economic zone.

Lorenzana echoed Duterte’s complaints about U.S. reluctance to supply the Philippines with state-of-the-art weaponry.

He said Manila was in the midst of an unprecedented military modernization program and needed to move beyond Vietnam War-era hardware that had been provided by Washington in the past.

“Non-treaty allies … have been receiving billion-dollar military aid and advanced weapons systems from the U.S. Perhaps, a longtime ally like the Philippines, facing major adversaries in Asia, deserves as much, if not more, assistance and commitment,” he said.

Lorenzana’s remarks came after Duterte in July restored https://ift.tt/3l4nFPm a pact governing movement of U.S. troops in and out of the country, something strategically vital for American efforts to counter China.

Duterte had vowed to terminate the Visiting Forces Agreement after Washington denied a visa to a Philippine senator who is an ally of the president.

For Washington, having the ability to rotate in troops is important not only for defense of the Philippines, but strategically when it comes to countering China in the region.

In July, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken repeated https://ift.tt/3hxQ4N9 a warning to China that an attack on Philippine armed forces in the South China Sea would trigger the mutual defense treaty.

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom in Washington and Karen Lema in Manila; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Source Link Philippines defense minister says U.S. treaty needs comprehensive review

David Barret
David Barret

Related posts:

  1. Britain’s Raab, in Qatar, says need to engage with Taliban on Afghanistan
  2. Deutsche Bahn takes striking train drivers’ union to court
  3. Singapore PM wins more defamation suits against bloggers
  4. Vietnam PM warns of long coronavirus fight as crisis deepens

Filed Under: News

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

  • “Silent, Ongoing Genocide”: World’s 196 Uncontacted Tribes Are Facing Grave Threats To Their Survival
  • Golden Tigers Are Among The Rarest Big Cats In The World, But They Spell Bad News For Tigers
  • Rare 2-Million-Year-Old Infant Facial Fossils Expand What We Know About Prehistoric Human Children
  • First-Ever 3D Map Of Planet Outside Solar System Reveals Distant World’s Hot Spot And Cool Ring
  • From Chains To Forests: Working Elephants Set To Be Rehabilitated In The Wild Under New Project
  • Why Does Death Have Such A Distinctive Smell?
  • Blue Dogs Have Been Spotted In Chernobyl: What Is Going On?
  • Record-Breaking Gravitational Wave Detection Suggests These Black Holes Merged Before
  • Hurricane Melissa Is 2025’s Strongest Storm Yet, With Turbulence So Bad It Saw Off The Hurricane Hunters
  • Fancy Seeing Your Organs In 4D? Pretty Soon, You Might Be Able To
  • First Known Bats To Glow In The Dark In The US Discovered – But Scientists Aren’t Sure Why
  • “You Be Good. I Love You”: How Alex The Parrot Rewrote Our Understanding Of Animal Intelligence
  • What Would You Find If You Drill Down Deep Under Antarctica?
  • This Is The Safest Place To Sit In Your Car
  • Birds, Hats, And Boycotts: The Story Behind Why It’s A Crime To Collect Feathers
  • Ultra-High-Definition TV – Is It Really Worth It? New Study Figures Out If We Can Even See In UHD
  • Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Will Be At Its Closest To The Sun This Week
  • Human Movement Around Earth Over 40 Times Greater Than That Of All Wild Land Animals Combined
  • Rats Filmed Snatching Bats Out Of The Air Mid-Flight In First-Of-Its-Kind Footage
  • Incredible Planetary System Has Two Stars And Three Earth-Sized Planets
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version