Tensions between China and the Philippines will continue to heat up over the next few years and could reach a "point of no return," according to the head of a government-backed Chinese think tank.
They may even reach a tipping point under the current pro-U.S. administration in Manila as Washington steps up its involvement in the South China Sea, Wu Shicun, president of the National Institute for South China Sea Studies, said in remarks on Saturday.
China-Philippines relations are simmering due to a long-running territorial dispute in the energy-rich waters, through which trillions of dollars worth of trade pass each year.
Beijing is increasingly willing to employ force to assert its claim of sovereignty over islands, reefs and maritime zones that lie within the Philippines' internationally recognized exclusive economic zone.
Under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the U.S. ally says it will remain undeterred despite repeated standoffs with Chinese maritime forces and blockades at Manila-controlled Second Thomas Shoal and other contested features in the Spratly Islands archipelago.
"The U.S.-led militarization in the South China Sea will intensify in the coming years," Wu told an annual forum hosted by the Chinese state-backed Global Times newspaper.
The region has been on this trajectory since the beginning of 2023, he said, citing a series of American military activities he said was driving the trend.
In April, the Philippines granted U.S. troops access to four additional bases, bringing the total to nine. In addition, U.S. warships including aircraft carriers have made a number of port calls at Vietnam's Cam Ranh Bay, the former American logistics hub during the Vietnam War.
The U.S. has conducted more than 30 "open military operations" and "uncountable covert operations" in the South China Sea, Wu said, including 1,000 sorties there and seven transits by aircraft carrier strike groups.
The academic said multilateral security arrangements between the Philippines and the U.S., Japan and Australia were targeting China. Each of the U.S. allies has joined air or maritime patrols with the Philippines in recent months.
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Wu also observed that the South China Sea was featured in the joint statement coming out August's Camp David summit between U.S. President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol.
The trio voiced support for the status quo in the Indo-Pacific region and condemned the "dangerous and aggressive behavior supporting unlawful maritime claims that we have recently witnessed by the People's Republic of China in the South China Sea," the communique said.
U.S., Japan, and Philipines Conduct Joint Patrol
The U.S. counts the Philippines as its oldest ally in Asia, and the two share a Mutual Defense Treaty that Washington has repeatedly said covers Philippine maritime and air assets in the South China Sea, too.
China's top diplomat, Wang Yi, told Philippine counterpart Enrique Manalo in a recent call to "act with caution." On Monday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry accused the Philippines of drawing extra-regional powers into the bilateral feud and warned it to "stop pursuing the wrong course."
The National Institute for South China Sea Studies and Chinese Foreign Ministery didn't immediately respond to Newsweek's separate requests for comment.
The argument that U.S. ambitions in the region were driving Philippine pushback against China was consistent with Beijing's worldview, according to Greg Poling, director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington, D.C.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter) last week, Poling said: "[O]nly great powers count; smaller states lack agency and act only as tools of great power competition. This is why China has refused to negotiate on the [South China Sea] in good faith for 3 decades."
GT here reflecting Beijing's view of the int'l system: only great powers count; smaller states lack agency and act only as tools of great power competition. This is why China has refused to negotiate on the SCS in good faith for 3 decades. https://t.co/N15uYVcRQX