Posted on 05/01/2023 10:11:14 AM PDT by Salman
Ferdinand Marcos, the president of the Philippines, has said he will not allow his country to become a “staging post” for military action ahead of a four-day official visit to Washington DC for security talks.
Mr Marcos’s official visit will be the first by a Philippine president in more than 10 years and comes amid heightened tensions between the United States and China as they compete for strategic advantage in the Indo-Pacific.
Manila has recently faced Beijing’s ire after granting the US access to four additional Filipino military bases. The move gives American forces a stronger foothold in locations close to Taiwan and in the South China Sea, where China is making sweeping territorial claims.
Mr Marcos must also counter domestic disquiet about the risk of being drawn into a future US-China conflict.
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(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
The Chinese will get around to you eventually and then you’ll wish you had friends.
Any relationship to the marcos’s of 30 years ago?
No country wants to be a staging post for warfare, but the Philippines would be the most logical choice were this to occur. Perhaps one of the outlying Phillippine islands in that region will suffice.
OSS had many contacts in China with the forces of Chiang Kai-shek, which existed because of the US Army's efforts to help the Chinese fight the Japanese during WWII. Claire Chennault started this, and a man named Desmond FitzGerald continued it after WWII ended.
Better a “staging post” than a battle front.
That’s okay, Ferdinand. They’ll just backstop out of GUAM for the heavies with weapons and then fly the tankers out of Kadena, Okinawa..... That’s what they did during Viet Nam.
I was at Kadena in 1971 right when they’d just pulled out a wing of B-52s used for bombing Viet Nam. The locals didn’t like all the bombs so they swapped the bombers for fully fuel-laden KC135s and ran the B-52s out of Guam (Operation Arc Light). They also used CCK Air Base in Taiwan
Guam’s too unstable, I guess.
“The Chinese will get around to you eventually and then you’ll wish you had friends.”
Well stated.
The son of the former strong man
I don’t think they had a vote on that in WWII.
Probably not in WWIII either...
The weak Phillipines can pretend that major powers will have zero to do with its future and its future security, but without the alliance with democracies, the U.S. and others, there are not and will not be security help for the Philippines, and it will come back to asking for the U.S. for help or succumbing to being subservient to China and being forced to allow Chinese military bases on Philippine Islands, to enable China to further bully democracies like Japan and South Korea.
It is no shame on current leaders to being a weak cuntry for reasons steeped in a long history (which cannot be undone overnight), but refusing to acknowlegde a bully is operating in your neck of the woods and further pretending that having no major allies will keep you out of harms way, is no less than sticking your head in the sand.
They are likely to get front row seats.
It will if we want it to be.
Then start learning Mandarin, Pinoy.
Reminds me of Belgium declaring "Belgium is not a road!" A couple of months later they said "and a very nice road too. Paved for easy marching."
You can’t have it both ways, Philippines. Either you want your economic and sovereignty protected, or you don’t.
For those who like to reject neocons or something, our massive naval base at Cam Ranh Bay in the South China Sea/ Vietnam would have continued to be an incredible asset in the coming conflict.
Isolationism has big consequences. That one was on the leftist democrats, but plenty here put Vietnam on their mistakes list.
It was a huge mistake, the part where we let N Vietnam win.
Hi.
In the Pacific AO the Phillpines would be the ideal place to counter the Chicoms. Naval base and airfield are within operational distance from China...and Taiwan. Or, there might be a better place...
Joe could go to the Vietnamese and ask for basing rights. That would be prime reali estate in a war with the CCP.
I crack me up.
5.56mm
You can’t be serious asking that.
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