The Philippines and Japan have finalised a vital security pact after years-long negotiations. The newly-signed Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA) is a de facto visiting forces deal, since it establishes “procedures for the cooperative activities … while the force of one country is visiting the other country and defines a legal status of the visiting force.” Accordingly, it allows the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Japanese Self Defence Forces (JSDF) to dramatically expand joint military activities, including large-scale drills focused on enhancing interoperability and joint response to various contingencies, including disasters as well as armed conflicts.
Moreover, the RAA paves the way for the transfer and exchange of increasingly sophisticated weapons systems. This is especially notable as the Philippines modernises its maritime forces amid the festering South China Sea disputes.
The ultimate aim is to better manage intensifying great power competition.
Both nations also have a direct interest in preparing for contingencies in neighbouring Taiwan, which is almost equidistantly positioned between important military facilities in northern Philippines and southern Japan. Thus, geography alone makes a more robust Philippine-Japan security cooperation pivotal to their American ally’s “integrated deterrence” strategy against a resurgent China, which has repeatedly warned of potential invasion of the self-ruling island nation.
The RAA is widely expected to be ratified by the Philippine Senate and the Japanese Diet in the near future, thanks to bipartisan support for stronger bilateral security relations. Both populist and reformist administration in Manila have supported closer ties with Tokyo, while the Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s ruling coalition enjoys a comfortable majority in the Japanese legislature. Though both nations recognise the indispensability of their respective treaty alliances with Washington, they are also hedging against potential uncertainties in the future.
In particular, there are growing worries over a more transactional and unilateralist American foreign policy under a second Trump administration. By all indications, the United States will remain as the “hub” of a network of partnerships in the Indo-Pacific, but allies are stepping up their own defence spending as well as deepening “spoke-to-spoke” cooperation among themselves.
Tokyo had earlier signed RAAs with Australia and the United Kingdom, two other key US allies. The ultimate aim is to better manage intensifying great power competition and, crucially, more effectively constraint China’s revanchist ambitions in adjacent waters, particularly in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait.
For long, post-war Japan has been largely dismissed as the robin to the batman of America. After all, the Northeast Asian nation has supposedly outsourced its external security needs to Washington under the so-called Yoshida doctrine. Japan has also been ostensibly constrained by its pacifist constitution, which proscribes any offensive projection of military power. Upon closer examination, however, it’s clear that Japan has gradually carved out its own place as a potential “third force” in vital regions such as Southeast Asia.
Economically, Japan continues to trounce all major powers, including China, in terms of offering big-ticket infrastructure investments as well as development aid from Vietnam to the Philippines. This largely explains why, despite its dark imperial legacy, namely its brutal occupation of neighbouring states during the Second World War, Tokyo enjoys considerable “soft power” across the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). In the influential annual survey of regional thought leaders, “The State of Southeast Asia”, Japan has consistently ranked as ASEAN’s top favoured partner, well ahead of both the United States and China.
Kishida has positioned Japan as a “global partner” for a rules-based international order, thus underscoring his country’s newfound role as a pillar of peace and security in Asia.
Throughout his decade-long stint as Japan’s leader, the late prime minister Shinzo Abe singularly focused on enhancing Japan-ASEAN relations and, crucially, revamping Tokyo’s post-war defence and foreign policy. And no regional state has been more supportive of an active Japanese security role in Asia than the Philippines. Under both the reformist Benigno Aquino and populist Rodrigo Duterte administrations, the Southeast Asian nation has actively supported a Japanese security role in the Indo-Pacific.
In 2018, Japan deployed, armoured vehicles for the first time in its post-war history for joint exercises in the Philippines, at the time the pro-Beijing Duterte was in charge. Over the subsequent years, Japan-Philippine defence relations experienced other firsts, including joint aerial exercises in 2022. If anything, Japan became a regular “observer” during annual Philippine-US Balikatan exercises, which have simulated potential war scenarios with China.
Earlier this year, Kishida, an Abe protégé, doubled down on strategic cooperation with the Philippines under the newly-launched Japan-Philippine-US (JAPHUS) trilateral security partnership, which was launched at the White House. During his visit to Washington, Kishida positioned Japan as a “global partner” for a rules-based international order, thus underscoring his country’s newfound role as a pillar of peace and security in Asia.
Under his “realism diplomacy”, the Japanese leader has doubled Japan’s defence spending as a share of the Gross Domestic Product and pressed ahead with the development of next-generation military technology, including fighter jets and long-range missiles, to make JSDF a truly global force in the 21st century.
Japan’s newly signed defence pact with the Philippines bolsters its security role in the region and, crucially, allows both Asian nations to more effectively prepare for and respond to potential contingencies in their own backyard. In particular, it facilitates growing intelligence-sharing, joint drills and technology transfer between Manila and Tokyo with an eye on China’s increasingly aggressive behaviour in the South China Sea.
The two countries can also deploy forces to and coordinate their defence posture, particularly in vital military facilities in northern Philippines (Batanes) and southern Japan (Okinawa), which is extremely close to Taiwan’s shores.
For Manila, its burgeoning defence partnership with Japan allows it to lessen its dependence on Washington and, crucially, access high-end technology and vital training, which is pivotal to the modernisation of the AFP. The spoke-to-spoke cooperation between Japan and the Philippines reflects the growing desire of middle-sized nations to upgrade their defensive capabilities and enhance their strategic autonomy amid a “New Cold War” as well as deepening uncertainty over the future of American foreign policy.
