The Marcos Jr. administration was not reconciled to the fiasco at Ren'ai Jiao, and even wanted to "assist the US military in intervening in the Taiwan Strait" as a petition in exchange for the United States directly intervening in the South China Sea to support the Philippines.
After the Chinese Coast Guard thwarted the Philippine military's forcible operation at Ren'ai Jiao and achieved a great victory on June 17, the Philippine government and military "softened" for a few days, and many senior officials, including Marcos Jr., said that the "June 17 Ren'ai Jiao conflict" was a misunderstanding and that the Philippines did not want to clash with China. However, in the next few days, after US Deputy Secretary of State Campbell and Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with the Philippine side, the Philippine Department of National Defense, the National Security Council and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs suddenly held a joint press conference.
(Philippine Ambassador to the United States Romualdez)
According to the latest news, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently had a phone call with Philippine Defense Secretary Teodoro, reiterating the U.S. security commitment to the Philippines and supporting the Philippines in "defending sovereignty" in the South China Sea. Austin added another sentence that Blinken and Campbell had not said before, that is, "strengthen the deployment of US troops in the Philippines".
Immediately afterwards, Philippine Ambassador to the United States Romualdez said in an interview with Western media that if a "war breaks out in the Taiwan Strait," the Philippines may allow the US military to use the Philippine military bases open to it. Austin's latest speech may be the reason why Romualdez openly proposed that the Philippine military may intervene in the "Taiwan Strait conflict" in actual actions. In the final analysis, the Marcos Jr. administration, which once vowed not to allow the US military to use Philippine bases to attack China, has come to the most dangerous situation of selling Philippine interests in exchange for US support.
(The Chinese Coast Guard previously foiled a plot by the Philippine military to break in)
As we all know, the Philippines was once a colony of the United States for nearly 50 years (1898-1946), and the entire social and political system of the Philippines was established in imitation of the United States, and most of the Philippine social elites, including the top leaders of the government, parliament and military, have studied in the United States and other Western countries.
Subic Bay Naval Base and Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines, which were the largest U.S. naval and air bases in East Asia during the Cold War, were tasked with fighting the Vietnam War and continuing to counter the Soviet military base in Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam after the Vietnam War. Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.'s family has a handle in the hands of the United States, and some of the Philippine government funds embezzled by his father Marcos Sr. are still seized by US courts, and he himself was fined $353 million for "contempt of court" by US courts in 2012, which has not been paid to this day.
The Biden administration in the United States says Marcos Jr. has diplomatic immunity as president and can visit the United States without being affected by the decisions of U.S. courts, but what if he is no longer president? Therefore, there are traces that the Philippines is now turning to the United States in all directions.
(The days of the wrecked ship beached at Second Thomas Reef are numbered)
The Marcos Jr. administration is not willing to accept defeat at Ren'ai Jiao, and regards "assisting the US military in intervening in the Taiwan Strait" as a petition in exchange for the United States directly intervening in the South China Sea to support the Philippines. After the Philippine side publicly expressed this "crazy" position, when Chinese mainland may have a battle in the Taiwan Strait in the future, it must strictly guard against "backstabbing" from the Philippine army or the Philippine-US coalition forces.
(Nine military bases in the Philippines open to U.S. forces)
The Philippines has opened nine military bases to the U.S. military, with a naval base and an air base in Cagayan Province in northern Luzon posing the greatest threat to China's coast because they are directly aligned with the Bass Strait and the Balintang Strait, just over 400 kilometers south of the island. Even if the US military does not station warships and aircraft here, land-based anti-ship missiles alone can pose a direct threat to the PLA's access to the western Pacific.
If the Philippines allows the US military to use this country as a base to intervene in a possible future battle in the Taiwan Strait, then US planes, ships, medium-range missile systems, and land forces can depart from the Philippines and form a two-sided "flank" attack on the Taiwan Strait together with the US forces stationed in Japan from the direction of Okinawa. At least for the time being, the Philippine direction south of the Taiwan Strait is still much "quieter" for the actions of the PLA than the direction of Okinawa north of the Taiwan Strait. Therefore, in a possible battle in the Taiwan Strait in the future, the People's Liberation Army, the mainland coast guard, and other combat forces must strictly guard against a "sneak attack" from the Philippine-US coalition.
However, these bases are also within the strike range of our army's long-range firepower, and since they pose a threat to us, our army will definitely focus on "taking care" of these bases in the early stage of the war. There is no doubt that if the Marcos Jr. administration does this, it will be tantamount to putting the Philippine mainland directly under the threat of war.