Archipelago of Resistance: The Philippines Is Rising to Meet the China Threat, But It Has a Crucial Year Ahead
Of all the flashpoints facing the Trump administration on Jan. 20, 2025, China’s campaign of intimidation and maritime occupation in the South China Sea may prove the most concerning for U.S. interests and preventing war in the Indo-Pacific. Beijing has spent decades occupying, building, and militarizing islands in those resource-rich waters through which trillions of dollars of trade pass annually. China’s incessant maritime incursions have ignored the sovereignty of its neighbors, violated international law, and given it strategic footholds for exercising political, economic, and military leverage. The aggressiveness of China’s expansionism has spiked in the last 18 months, with the Philippines as the focal point of its ire. Beijing’s timing is not coincidental. The Philippines, a mutual defense treaty ally of the United States, is entering a pivotal 12-month period in which a convergence of critical issues promises seismic implications for not only its national security, defense, and foreign policy trajectory but also its internal stability. As Beijing has pushed the region to the brink, it has dragged the Philippines to center stage.
For its part, the Philippines has adopted an assertive posture to manage China’s aggression as it prepares for a multigenerational campaign to protect regional peace. With highly capable and respected current and former generals overseeing national security, the armed forces, and internal peace efforts, President Ferdinand Marcos’ administration has prioritized internal stability and a transformative foreign policy agenda as the foundation for and complement to a much-needed military modernization and reposturing for territorial defense. Successive administrations have also worked to build a legal architecture against Beijing’s “might is right” bullying. On Nov. 8, 2024, the Philippines passed the Philippines Maritime Zones Act and the Archipelagic Sea Lanes Act. Together, these laws define Philippines maritime possessions in line with the constitution, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and the 2016 arbitral award, and designate sea and air routes through its archipelago. The same week, the Philippines military conducted joint island seizure and defense exercises. Just as China ignores international law and acts accordingly, the Philippines appreciates the existential need to exercise its legal rights. Beijing responded with typical vitriol.
The Philippines government has embarked upon an ambitious national security, defense, and foreign policy agenda that has delivered a more stable internal security environment and growing regional influence. That progress will be tested in the coming year. In 2025, a peace process that has brought unprecedented stability to its historically restive south enters its endgame as the Bangsamoro autonomous region prepares for its first elections. Simultaneous local and national elections will test the security sector’s responsiveness to election-related violence and foreign interference. The elections will also serve as a litmus test for the national government’s policies. Amidst all this, the Philippines will need to forge ahead with its military modernization program as Beijing inevitably cranks up its coercive actions. For the Trump administration, maturing and elevating the long-standing U.S.-Philippines alliance will be vital for managing China’s aggression, championing U.S. interests, and upholding the conditions for peace in the Indo-Pacific.
Philippines Rising
The Philippines is a fulcrum of the U.S.-Chinese strategic competition in Asia. Based on its geography alone, the Philippines is arguably Southeast Asia’s most important country. Its southernmost island sits in a tri-border region with Indonesia and Malaysia, while its northernmost island is a mere 90 miles from Taiwan. The northern islands of Luzon are part of the First Island Chain, with the Second Island Chain marking the maritime boundary of the Philippine Sea’s eastern reaches. For 200 nautical miles off its west coast stretches the West Philippine Sea and, beyond that, the broader South China Sea. As then-President Trump has said of the Philippines: “It is a strategic location — the most strategic location. … The most prime piece of real estate from a military standpoint.” Yet, the story of the Philippines is one of unmet potential. Historically, the country has been dogged by political instability, economic mismanagement, and internal security threats. For too long, the Philippines has been a nation swept up by the geostrategic currents of its neighborhood rather than a shaper of them. That has started to change.
There is perhaps no better evidence of the Philippines’ rise on the global stage than the unprecedented trilateral summit between the United States, Japan, and the Philippines in April 2024. The meeting signaled not just a shift in Asia’s security architecture but the Philippines’ emerging role in those dynamics. Since 2022, the Philippines has rejuvenated and deepened bilateral relationships with the United States and Japan, respectively, built a web of broader economic and security partnerships across the Indo-Pacific and beyond, and begun a military modernization pivot from internal security operations to territorial defense. The strengthening of U.S.-Philippines relations has seen confidence renewed in the Mutual Defense Treaty and the Visiting Forces Agreement, the establishment of Bilateral Defense Guidelines to “modernize alliance cooperation,” and increased U.S. access to Philippines military bases. The Philippines has similar status of forces agreements with Australia and, most recently, Japan. In just the last year, the Philippines has struck security partnerships with the likes of Singapore, Vietnam, India, and Germany amidst a regional surge in defense spending and a flurry of security arrangements across Asia.
Out of necessity, the Philippines has led the region in adopting a more forward-leaning approach to dealing with Beijing’s decades-long “slow boil” strategy to flip the Indo-Pacific’s power balance. In the West Philippine Sea, China has conducted aggressive air and sea maneuvers, attacked Philippines servicemembers with water cannon and military grade lasers, deployed “swarming” tactics to intimidate and prevent the movement of Philippines vessels, all the while flooding the information environment with manipulative rhetoric. For the Philippines, the West Philippine Sea is a dual domain contest. On the sea, the Philippines has lost the strategic advantage against a materially superior adversary. In the information domain, however, the Philippines sees opportunities to claw back momentum. To do so, it has deployed an “assertive transparency” strategy to expose China’s aggressive tactics by publicly releasing evidence that is then amplified by both media coverage and government-led strategic communications. Philippines government messaging has sought to focus attention on Beijing’s “say-do” gaps, called for peaceful dispute resolutions and respect for international law, highlighted the country’s efforts to tactically de-escalate during incidents at sea, while emphasizing that the nation will never yield to China’s bullying. As the Philippines has gained momentum in the information domain, national resolve has solidified, global awareness has grown thanks to high-profile media embeds, and neighboring countries have become more supportive of Manila.
The posture adopted by the Philippines is testimony to a growing national confidence. Since the end of World War II, Philippines armed forces have almost entirely focused on domestic threats, namely communist insurgencies across the archipelago and Moro separatist groups in Mindanao. On both issues, pivotal breakthroughs have been made in recent years. Communist insurgencies have been weakened, and the national government has explored peace negotiations to finally quell that threat. However, it is the peace process in Mindanao, which has ended decades of conflict between the Philippines government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and led to the establishment of the Bangsamoro autonomous region, that has been the breakthrough for internal stability. As domestic security has improved, the Philippines has experienced a period of post-pandemic economic growth, seeing it become one of Asia’s most promising emerging markets. All these gains will be sharply tested in the coming year.
A Nation at the Crossroads
The closing months of 2024 have showcased the volatility that often characterizes the Philippines’ domestic context. In November, a supreme court decision cast further uncertainty over the conduct of upcoming elections in Mindanao, the senate restored cuts made by the lower house to a 2025 defense budget that was already insufficient to meet modernization benchmarks, and six typhoons slammed the archipelago. Yet public attention was gripped by the escalating feud between the families of President Marcos and Vice President Sara Duterte, daughter of former president Rodrigo Duterte. Philippines government agencies are well-versed in managing volatility, but they certainly don’t need further distractions given the year ahead.
Over the next 12 months, the Philippines must manage a convergence of critical issues. First and foremost, the Bangsamoro peace process enters its endgame in 2025. After decades of cyclical peace failures followed by spikes in conflict, the most promising peace process in living memory has seen the signing of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro in 2014 and the establishment of an autonomous region with a presidentially appointed transition authority in 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic delayed progress on the political, legal, and former combatant decommissioning requirements of the peace agreement, resulting in an originally three-year transition period being extended by another three years. This, in turn, pushed the autonomous region’s first elections to May 2025. The resilience of the peace gains will continue to be tested as violent peace spoilers, particularly Islamic State–affiliated factions of local rebel groups, seek to derail what remains a very promising but fragile peace.
Yet the greatest vulnerabilities for peace in the Bangsamoro remain self-inflicted. While the political and legal requirements of the peace process are largely on track, the decommissioning and disarming of former combatants are behind schedule and plagued with implementation problems. There is also a sense, especially in the impoverished rural communities most impacted by conflict, that peace dividends have not been delivered. That the most vulnerable communities are also where many disgruntled former combatants and their families live hints at the precariousness of the security situation in some parts of the autonomous region and the potential for violence to erupt if problems remain unresolved. More broadly, an expectation management problem persists. Not enough has been done to manage the local population’s expectations to avoid the sense of crisis that flourishes when hope does not meet reality. Having spent years working in those hot-spot communities implementing ground-level programs to uphold peace and ceasefire agreements and build community resilience to the lures of violent peace spoilers, the people’s hopes are typically for their most rudimentary needs to be addressed: consistent meals for their kids, access to education and health services, basic infrastructure, and a stable security environment. These issues inevitably converge on the ground in a street-by-street and house-by-house struggle: the daily grind that is the real work of delivering and maintaining peace. It is a job too often left to the tireless and often heroic efforts of a stretched security sector and underresourced civil society.
It is difficult to overstate how important maintaining peace and stability in the Bangsamoro is for the Philippines to hold its economic, national security, and foreign policy course. Certainly, any hopes of the country’s armed forces focusing on territorial defense will require the freeing up of the estimated 40 percent of its battalions deployed there. In preparation for upcoming elections, the military presence has surged to put violent rebel groups on the back foot and to maintain security and stability during this critical time. While the Bangsamoro’s first elections were originally scheduled for May 12, 2025, to coincide with local and national elections, the supreme court decision removing Sulu province from the autonomous region could cause a brief postponement. Either way, the challenges facing the security sector’s management of election-related violence, especially in the south, will be compounded by an expected torrent of election interference activities.
Despite a complicated year ahead, the Philippines does not have the luxury of delaying or deviating from the course it has set. After all, China’s incursions in the West Philippine Sea are just the crudest tip of a diverse spectrum of activities that are dominated by an intensifying and broadening interference campaign across the archipelago. Beijing’s efforts may appear ineffectual given China’s low trust and popularity amongst Filipinos. This is a red herring. Authoritarian regimes are not particularly concerned with popularity abroad but rather use malign influence to erode a trinity of trusts — social trust, trust in authorities and expertise, and trust in democratic institutions — to fuel polarization and unrest. This is the logic of anti-democratic malign influence, and the Philippines operates on the frontlines of this struggle in the Indo-Pacific.
Mature and Elevate the U.S.-Philippines Relationship
The U.S. government can better champion American interests in Asia and reinforce a bulwark against Beijing’s aggression by advancing the U.S.-Philippines relationship as a core component of its Indo-Pacific ambitions. For now, the Philippines ought to remove a major domestic demand on its security sector by fulfilling the requirements of the Bangsamoro peace process and stabilizing the autonomous region to ensure its first elections are free and fair. So far, the U.S. government has done remarkably little to support peace in the Bangsamoro. Yet targeted, low-cost efforts could prove decisive in tipping the balance, especially if that support is funneled to directly assist ground-level peace and ceasefire activities. This would also demonstrate to the Philippines that the United States appreciates the historic and strategic significance of finally bringing peace to the south. For its part, the Philippines will need to regularly present a persuasive case to Washington for why it is important to U.S. interests and how it is pulling its weight in the alliance. The stakes are too high to do otherwise.
For the Philippines, China is an existential threat. But rather than languish under the weight of that pressure by capitulating to Beijing’s coercion or making demands of wealthier nations to rush to its defense, the Philippines has worked hard to rise to the challenge. While there is a friendly and enthusiastic administration in Manila, there are several ways to further elevate the alliance. First, the Mutual Defense Treaty and the Visiting Forces Agreement are the bedrock of the U.S.-Philippines relationship, and it will be crucial for both sides to regularly and unequivocally affirm those alliance commitments as a deterrence to war. As Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, Senator Marco Rubio, wrote last year, “If there is even a hint that the United States will not honor its security commitments to the Philippines or other treaty allies in Asia, it will encourage Beijing to engage in more hostilities to test our resolve.” The mutual defense treaty has been effective in preventing acts of war in Philippines seas. However, it has proven insufficient against China’s “long game” of escalating coercive actions (i.e., violence below the threshold of war) combined with deceptive messaging to achieve its occupation and militarization goals.
A peaceful and stable Indo-Pacific therefore requires a comprehensive suite of capacity-building and partnership-building efforts to prevent and counter Beijing’s illegal and aggressive actions below the threshold of war. The United States has an important and mutually beneficial role to play on both fronts. U.S. support to Philippines’ strategic and operational capacity — such as the bipartisan Philippines Enhanced Resilience Act of 2024, which provides $500 million of U.S. security assistance to the Philippines annually — will be critical for the alliance and Philippines’ modernization efforts. In his final visit to the Philippines, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin signed a bilateral information and defense technology sharing agreement, announced the provision of unmanned surface vessels to the Philippines navy, and acknowledged the presence of U.S. Task Force Ayungin to support maritime domain awareness. Other countries are also making significant contributions to Philippines’ capacity. For example, Philippines Coast Guard capabilities were recently boosted by five vessels from Japan and 40 vessels from France. Joint exercises, too, will continue to play a vital role in partner interoperability.
On partnership building, as the United States evolves from a “hub-and-spoke” to a “web” system of alliances and partnerships in the Indo-Pacific, the Philippines can help to strengthen the intra-regional web, particularly in Southeast Asia. To elevate and mature the U.S.-Philippines alliance, it will inevitably need to adopt many of the structures and systems of more advanced alliances and the burgeoning U.S.-Japanese-Philippines trilateral offers a suitable forum for such progress. A more mature U.S.-Philippines relationship should also provide space for the Philippines to lead on key issues. For example, Manila’s approach to addressing malign influence and deploying public messaging has been decisive in attracting global attention, garnering partners in the region, and building national resilience on the West Philippine Sea. In this area, the Philippines has much to offer regional and global partners.
The Constant Pursuit of Peace
It is difficult to decipher the goal of China’s hostilities toward the Philippines. Perhaps Beijing is testing the boundaries and fueling the conditions for war on Taiwan. In the short term, it’s more likely that Beijing has decided that the Philippines must serve as a deterrence to others from resisting its bullying. Whatever the answer, China is making the Indo-Pacific a more volatile region, and it has picked the Philippines as its primary target — at least for now. For all these unknowns, one thing is certain: China is not about to relieve its pressure on the Philippines.
The Philippines faces a year in which it will need to manage some extraordinary domestic challenges. The national government, working with its counterparts in the south, must get the Bangsamoro peace process over the finish line and the region through its first elections. Achieving that milestone will signal the transfer of the autonomous region’s destiny into the hands of its own democratically elected government. Simultaneous local and national polls will test the security sector, while the national results will reshape the configuration of the Philippine congress, set the scene for the 2028 presidential elections, and serve as a report card on the Marcos administration’s performance. All these internal challenges will need to be managed while holding course on a foreign policy path that promises to position the Philippines as a more skilled navigator of the geostrategic currents that surround it.
Supporting the Philippines through the headwinds of the next year will require the U.S. government to consider how it can help tip the balance toward peace and stability in the south. It is simple: If one cares about the Philippines being a stable and capable alliance partner, one must also care about the fortunes of the Bangsamoro region. Removing that internal drain on the Philippines security sector frees it to focus on defending its sovereignty and ensuring that the West Philippine Sea is not a flashpoint for regional conflict. For now, the mutual defense treaty with the United States is a powerful deterrent to war, but more needs to be done to ensure that China’s so-called grey zone activities are not allowed to slowly erode Philippine sovereignty and give Beijing critical footholds that further tip the strategic balance in its favor. Overall, the picture is clear: advancing U.S.-Philippines relations is not just in the best interests of Washington — it also will help to create the conditions for a more peaceful and stable region.
Haroro J. Ingram is the Philippines country director for the United States Institute of Peace. He is based in the Philippines. X:@haroro_ingram.
Image: Philippine Navy via Wikimedia Commons
