Balikatan: Joint US-Philippines military exercises are a dangerous escalation toward war with China

Cecilia PazMay 2, 2025

2623 5 minutes read

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On April 21, the U.S. and Philippine militaries began their 40th annual Balikatan military exercises in Quezon City, Philippines. This year’s drills, which last until May 9, are historic in scale. They involve over 14,000 troops and several new advanced weapons and focus on simulating “full-scale battle scenarios” with China. 

The Trump administration claims that the newly intensified Balikatan exercises are a necessary move to defend the Philippines’ sovereignty and prevent a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. China characterizes the exercises as a threat to peace and stability in the region. The Balikatan exercises “undermine regional strategic stability” and are part of Trump’s policy “unilateralism, protectionism, bullying and hegemony,” said Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun. 

Balikatan 2025 has been dubbed the “Super Bowl” of military exercises. In addition to 9,000 U.S. troops and 5,000 soldiers from the Philippines, hundreds are joining from Japan, Australia, Britain, France and Canada. The host nations are flexing their most advanced weapons. For the first time, the United States is deploying the Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS) to the Philippines, at the Luzon Strait, a critical chokepoint for Chinese naval access to the Pacific Ocean. The NMESIS is a remote-operated anti-ship missile launcher capable of striking targets 100 nautical miles away.

This year’s repertoire also includes the Typhon missile system, which was introduced to the Philippines during the 2024 Balikatan exercises and now remains there indefinitely, despite Washington assuring China that they would remove it. The Typhon is a mid-range capability missile launcher that can strike from up to 12,000 miles away. Its position in the northernmost part of the Philippines would allow it to reach dozens of major Chinese cities. 

US aggression escalates in the South China Sea

The South China Sea has emerged as a critical site of contestation in the New Cold War. It is a major global shipping route, fishing ground and site of natural resource reserves. A 2016 study by the United Nations found that over 21% of global trade passed through its waters. China, the Philippines, and several other countries including Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei have conflicting territorial claims over various islands in the sea. Taiwan also claims territory. The conflicting claims date back centuries, but have been repeatedly inflamed in recent years by the United States. 

Why is the United States, a country located almost 8,000 miles away, inserting itself in regional disputes? Because China’s economic rise poses a threat to the U.S.-dominated world order. Since the end of World War II, the U.S. has set the terms of the world economy and enjoyed unbridled access to the Global South’s resources. Now, China is the world’s largest economy measured by Purchasing Power Parity, and has established itself as an attractive trade partner for underdeveloped nations through infrastructure projects like the Belt and Road Initiative and its leadership in the BRICS alliance. In a desperate plea to preserve its economic hegemony, the U.S. seeks to contain China’s rise through military force.

In a leaked Pentagon memo from March, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth zeroed in on China as the United State’s “sole pacing threat.” Hegseth is a former Fox News host and U.S. soldier with a track record of making hyperbolic, unsubstantiated claims about China. He is accompanied in Trump’s cabinet by other major China hawks including Marco Rubio, Elbridge Colby and John Ratcliffe. But U.S. aggression towards China is not new; it has been escalating since the Bush administration. Obama’s 2011 “Pivot to Asia” then introduced a strategy of U.S. military “encirclement” to contain China’s rise. This means surrounding China with U.S. military installations and making hostile treaties with neighboring nations. In East Asia alone, the U.S. now has 313 military bases.

The Philippines is part of what the U.S. military calls a “first island chain”: a series of islands extending from Japan to Malaysia to form a “wall of missiles” that would act as a first line of strategic containment of China if a war were to break out over Taiwan. In 2023, the U.S. gained access to four new military bases in the Philippines. Three of the new bases are located on the northern island of Luzon, 310 miles from Taiwan. Biden’s aforementioned permanent installation of the Typhon missile system in 2024 also helped set the stage for this year’s newly aggressive Balikatan drills.

Contrastingly, China has two foreign military bases total and zero military bases in the Americas. The last time China fought a war was in 1979. Since that year, the U.S. has started several major wars and launched hundreds of military interventions. China has not matched the Pentagon’s increasingly aggressive rhetoric and action. Instead, they have come out strongly in resistance to U.S. bullying and urged the United States to cease its threats to global security and economic prosperity.

Taiwan and the Philippines: Pawns in the New Cold War

An important fact is missing from recent messaging from the Pentagon and mainstream media: Taiwan is recognized as part of China by the United States under the One China policy. In 1972, the United States and China issued the Shanghai Communique, where they began the process of normalizing relations. In 1979, a second joint Shanghai Communique officially established diplomatic relations and cemented U.S. recognition of the One China policy. The U.S. also promised to decrease arms sales to Taiwan over time. Instead, it has instead done the opposite. 

The U.S. supports Taiwanese separatists and frames secession from China as the wish of the majority of Taiwanese. In reality, separatism is not a consensus on the island. Data from 2023 shows that a minority of 4.5% of Taiwanese support immediate separation from China, and 17% support gradually moving towards independence. Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party are staunch U.S.-supported separatists, but they only won 40% of the vote in a three-way race during the 2024 presidential elections. Taiwan is lauded by the U.S. ruling class as a pinnacle of democracy, but U.S. support for Taiwan dates back to Chiang Kai-Shek’s anti-communist military dictatorship that ruled Taiwan from 1949 to the mid-1980s.

Balikatan means “shoulder to shoulder” in Tagalog, but the U.S. military’s treatment of the Philippines has been characterized by domination and betrayal, not friendship. In 1898, the U.S. helped the Philippines defeat their Spanish colonizers, then backstabbed them by declaring colonial rule and going to war against Filipino liberation fighters. During World War II, the U.S. sacrificed hundreds of thousands of Filipinos to the Japanese, then largely ignored recovery efforts there, even as it helped uplift European economies post-war. After decolonization in 1946, the United States has maintained a hefty military presence on the islands and a heavy-handed approach to the Philippines’ internal political and economic affairs. They supported the brutal dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. in the 1970s and 1980s. The Pentagon’s vow to defend the Philippines’ sovereignty is ironic given its track record of doing the opposite.

The current president of the Philippines is the former dictator’s son, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. He denies his family’s violent legacy and has been convicted of corruption and tax evasion. Marcos Jr. continued the Duterte administration’s policy of murdering hundreds of political opponents — including anti-imperialist activists — under the guise of a “war on drugs.” Under the supervision of the U.S., Marcos Jr. reversed previous moves to improve relations with China. A loyal U.S. lapdog, Bongbong has poured massive resources into the military while failing to improve the lives of ordinary Filipinos. 

Stand against economic war at home and imperialism abroad!

Between their reckless wargames abroad and their economic war at home, it is the U.S. ruling class who poses the greatest threat to working-class Americans, not China. The Balikatan drills are another iteration of a U.S. containment policy that is driving global economic instability and increasing the possibility of a catastrophic war. Working-class Americans must stand against U.S. aggression towards China and demand that our government fund people’s needs, not the war machine.

Feature image: U.S. and Philippine Marines conduct coastal artillery training during Balikatan 2023. Credit: Flickr/us-pacific-command (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Balikatan: Joint US-Philippines military exercises are a dangerous escalation toward war with China – Liberation News