Japan and Philippines ink key military pact in defense ties upgrade
The Japan Times
By Gabriel Dominguez and Jesse Johnson
8 July 2024
Ground Self-Defense Force personnel take part in a joint amphibious landing exercise with Philippine and U.S. troops in San Antonio, in the Philippines' Zambales province, in October 2018.
Japan and the Philippines on Monday signed a highly anticipated visiting-forces agreement, paving the way for greater bilateral and multilateral defense cooperation amid escalating tensions between the two partners and Beijing in the disputed East and South China Seas.
The two U.S. allies signed the Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA) shortly after Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa and Defense Minister Minoru Kihara met with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
The agreement, which still needs parliamentary approval, will enable larger and more complex joint military exercises and grant the Self-Defense Forces greater access to Philippine bases, potentially even enabling rotational deployments.
The pact stipulates jurisdiction in the event a service member commits a crime or causes an accident in the other’s country. It also eases restrictions on the transportation of weapons and supplies for joint training and disaster relief operations.
The agreement comes after months of negotiations, and is Japan’s first with a Southeast Asian country.
Kamikawa and Kihara, who were in Manila for a "two-plus-two" meeting between the countries' defense and foreign ministers, lauded the agreement.
“As the security environment surrounding us becomes more and more severe, it is extremely important to highlight cooperation and coordination with our allies and with like-minded countries in order to maintain peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region,” Kihara told a joint news conference.
“The RAA signed today is groundbreaking, and I hope that cooperative exchanges between the SDF and the Philippines will become even more active,” he added.
While Japanese forces have regularly visited the Philippines in recent years, they have often “piggybacked on U.S.-Philippine training activities,” said John Bradford, a military expert and former country director for Japan at the Office of the U.S. Defense Secretary.
“But with the latest pact, we can now expect more bilateral activities,” he said, noting that the RAA will not only result in more cross-training but, more importantly, also in “streamlined procedures that will make such activities less costly and reduce the lead time needed to go from proposal to deployment.”
Though Kamikawa said Monday that closer Japan-Philippine security ties were “not aimed at a specific country,” China’s “aggressive moves” near disputed islands and features — in particular around the Philippine outpost on Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea and near the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea — have provided “a motivating cause for cooperation,” said Jeffrey Hornung, a senior political scientist and Japan lead at the Rand Corp. think tank.
The pact will not only make it much easier and faster for the SDF to be deployed to the Philippines for drills, but also in times of crises, including natural disasters, while helping improve bilateral operational readiness and interoperability.
At the same time, the RAA will strengthen trilateral cooperation with U.S. and possibly Australian forces, both of which have signed similar pacts with the Philippines.
The visiting-forces agreement will be Japan's fourth overall, following its 1960 Status of Forces Agreement with the U.S., and its RAAs with Australia in 2022 and the U.K. last year.
Tokyo also recently launched negotiations for a similar pact with France, reflecting the speed at which Japan is deepening and expanding its network of international security partners — particularly with other U.S. treaty allies.
Hornung said the speed at which Tokyo’s latest RAA negotiations progressed was “remarkable,” especially given that Manila only announced its intent to sign the deal last November.
“The negotiations Japan had with Australia and the U.K. for those RAAs took years,” he said.
Concerns over the fate of democratic Taiwan, which China claims as a renegade province, were believed to have played an outsize role in the need for a quick agreement.
The Philippines’ proximity to both Taiwan and key sea lanes in the South China Sea makes it an attractive staging point for the U.S. and its allies that could boost their ability to respond to regional crises.
This has made reinforcing defense relations with Manila a critical element in both Tokyo and Washington’s calculus for deterring and countering Beijing.
According to Masashi Murano, a Japan expert at the U.S.-based Hudson Institute think tank, the RAA could also enable SDF surface-to-ship missile units to drill with powerful U.S. offensive weapons such as HIMARS and new midrange missile systems on Luzon Island, although Japanese political concerns could prevent such a move.
It would also allow the Ground Self-Defense Force’s Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade and U.S. Marines or special forces to train with small, ground-launched loitering munitions and drones capable of electronic attacks.
“These could create a denial zone from the northern Philippines to southern Taiwan — which would be part of what (U.S. Indo-Pacific Command chief) Adm. Samuel Paparo calls a ‘hellscape’ that would put at risk Chinese naval vessels attempting to pass through the Bashi Channel,” Murano said.
The U.S. — which last year gained access to four more military sites in the Philippines, in addition to five that were previously agreed to — has been helping the Philippines bolster its defense capabilities.
Japan has also expanded security ties with its mutual U.S. ally, agreeing in May to provide a $415 million loan for additional coast guard ships, as well as making Manila the first beneficiary of a military aid program that provides defense equipment for free to like-minded nations.
While Japan and the U.S. have been separately strengthening ties with the Philippines, Washington has recently also sought to bring the countries closer together to deepen trilateral defense cooperation and build up what it calls “collective capacity.”
From a global perspective, Bradford said, increased security cooperation between Tokyo and Manila will help fortify a "maritime wall" along what is known as the first island chain, which links the Japanese islands, Taiwan and the Philippines.
But critics say that beefing up deterrence without taking into account potential responses — and with only minimal diplomatic efforts made to address worsening relations — runs the risk of escalating confrontation.
This is especially the case as maritime disputes between the Philippines and China threaten to drag the U.S., and possibly even Japan and Australia, into a larger crisis.
Beijing has repeatedly criticized such U.S.-led defense constructs as attempts to militarily encircle China.
Meanwhile, as Japan looks to balance its ties with China, the ostensibly pacifist country is also likely to face high political and legal hurdles for rotational SDF deployments to the Philippines, experts say — though these hurdles are slowly being lowered.
“Given that the U.S. Army's Mid-Range Capability Typhon missile system, deployed in April this year for the purpose of joint U.S.-Philippines exercises, is still being deployed in the Philippines, the boundary between deployment for the purpose of exercises and rotational deployments is becoming ambiguous,” Murano said.
Ultimately, while the symbolism involved in the pact sends a powerful message to China, it is not expected to dramatically change the way Tokyo cooperates with Manila, which has limits to how far it will go in confronting Beijing.
“I think it useful to see this as yet another step that brings (Japan and the Philippines) closer together,” said Naoko Aoki, a political scientist with the Rand Corp.
“As the two countries increase cooperation, I think it is important for them to discuss what they are prepared to do during contingencies,” she said.
“While an answer to this may not be clear immediately, I think it is important for Japan and the Philippines to continue their strategic dialogue to gain a better understanding about each other’s thinking.”