The USA has provided two frigates to the Philippine Navy -BRP Gregorio del Pilar, which arrived in the country in 2011, and BRP Ramon Alcaraz, which was commissioned in 2013.
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“You can count on the United States”, Obama said, with US and Philippine troops looking on.
US President Barack Obama today offered the Philippines a warship as part of a United States dollars 250-million aid package to Southeast Asian allies anxious about Chinese efforts to control the South China Sea.
“We intend to transfer two additional ships to the Philippine Navy – a research vessel to help man its territorial waters and another Coast Guard cutter to bolster the Navy’s ability to conduct long endurance patrols”, Obama said during his visit to the Philippine Navy ship BRP Gregorio del Pilar in Manila yesterday.
Without mentioning China’s recent provocations in one of the world’s most strategic maritime trade routes, Mr. Obama affirmed the USA commitment to the Philippines’ security and freedom of commerce.
Obama’s visit to the Philippine Navy is a testament to a defense cooperation agreement made a year ago that opened anew access of U.S. forces to a few Philippine military bases.
Obama is in Manila attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders’ summit.
The US military maneuvers in the past month involving ships and B-52 bombers were meant to underline that the USA won’t allow freedom of navigation to be compromised by China’s vast claim to the disputed waters.
Taiwan’s representative Vincent Siew, left, gestures beside Colombia President Juan Manuel Santos during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit at the financial district of Makati, south of Manila, Philippines on Monday, November 16, 2015.
Leaders at a regional summit in the Philippines plan to condemn the Paris attacks, according to a draft of their declaration seen Tuesday by The Associated Press.
An APEC leaders’ meeting will be held from Wednesday to Thursday. Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is in Manila for APEC while Premier Li Keqiang (李克強) will represent Beijing in Malaysia.
Beijing, which claims nearly the entire energy-rich South China Sea through which $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes yearly, has stepped up land reclamation and construction in disputed islands and reefs there.
For Obama, the latest flurry of summitry illustrates how his effort to “rebalance” USA policy toward Asia-Pacific countries has consistently run into the geopolitical reality that the persistently volatile Middle East can not be ignored.
“A slowdown in trade growth is weighing on Asia-Pacific economies, coming after a quarter century of high trade growth that fuelled the region’s development and transformed it into an engine for the global economy”, the APEC Secretariat said in a statement on Sunday.
China’s island building in the Spratlys was not about militarization, Liu said, adding for example that too much attention had been placed on the length of China’s airstrips.
Islamic State leaders “will have no safe haven anywhere”, Obama said at the G20 summit, vowing a ruthless pursuit of the group.
“The bottom line is that China still has a lot of money to throw around”, said Tobias Harris, an economics and trade expert at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation.
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The Obama administration simultaneously sought to encourage the parties to cooperate and peacefully resolve the disputes while also putting China on notice with military movements in the region.
