Photographer: Ted Aljibe / AFP / Getty Images
Photographer: Ted Aljibe / AFP / Getty Images
The Philippines has said that the government of US President Joe Biden has promised that America will help the Southeast Asian nation if there is an armed attack in the South China Sea, repeating a commitment made by the administration of former President Donald Trump.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Philippine Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin in an appeal, the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty between the two nations, “will apply to armed attacks against the Philippines,” the Manila envoy said. in Washington, Jose Manuel Romualdez, at a virtual forum organized by the association of foreign correspondents.
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US State Department in a separate document In a statement on Wednesday, Blinken said he had spoken with Locsin about the application of the treaty “to armed attacks on the Philippine armed forces, public ships or aircraft in the Pacific, including the South China Sea.”
The reassurance comes amid Beijing’s continued assertion of its claims in the South China Sea, which overlap with those in Manila and other nations in the region. China recently has passed a law giving its coastguard more freedom to fire on foreign vessels, a move that could increase the risk of miscalculation in disputed waters and which the Philippines he protested.