On 10th December 2024, Japan, the US, and the Philippines organised the first Maritime Dialogue in Tokyo, Japan which was a follow up of the Trilateral Summit that took place between Japan, the US and the Philippines on 11th April 2024 in Washington, D.C., the United States. The focus of the first Maritime Dialogue between the three countries was to strengthen their partnership and cooperation amongst themselves as natural partners and maritime nations which would help interlink effort in the Pacific Ocean. Prior to the 1st Maritime Dialogue between Japan, the US, and the Philippines, the sixth meeting of the Japan and the Philippines took place on 3rd December 2024 where they reaffirmed themselves as maritime neighbours with interests in strategic partnership. In this meeting, they spoke about the efforts of exchanges and coordination between defence agencies, capacity building efforts like the maritime domain awareness, maritime law enforcement capability, and marine environment.
One must understand that all the three countries are maritime nations, and their focus was to deepen maritime cooperation which would be in sync with the efforts of the Indo-Pacific based on the rules-based law. The other concern is the issue happening between the Philippines and China in the South China Sea and so, in this summit meeting the three countries discussed about the recent developments and together they reaffirmed their efforts in dealing with any unilateral attempts being made to change the status quo. The three countries also focused on the need to aim for peaceful settlement of disputes and looked at the need to comply with the Arbitral Tribunal’s award between Philippines and China.
The situation in the South China Sea has been a cause of concern for a long time as there have been many disputes in the past and the current issues and clashes are drawing more attention. The US and the Philippines have been old ally’s dating back to 1951 and aim to work towards peace, protection, and security in the Indo-Pacific. In fact, last year on 1st May 2023, both the US and the Philippines aimed at “Investing in the Special Friendship and Alliance”, where they announced efforts in many domains like the bilateral defence guidelines for the modernisation of the alliance, interoperability, information sharing, acceleration of defence capabilities, collaborating on emerging security challenges, enhancing the Philippines armed forces capabilities, preparedness in the domain of maritime and tactical lift capabilities, development of local communities for economic development, health and education support, protection of the environment, humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, clean energy, critical mineral sector, food security, digital upskilling, open RAN, high quality infrastructure, and space cooperation. Japan too has been actively helping the Philippines in improving connectivity and work towards greater economic development and resilience like the promotion of Open RAN along with addressing issues of regional and global importance like that of the issues in South China Sea.
During the Trilateral Summit in April 2024, the leaders of Japan, the US, and the Philippines focused on being Indo-Pacific maritime democracies aiming for a rules-based law, along with working on aspects of robust economic development and areas of security and prosperity of national interest, regional security and global security. The Trilateral Summit focused on the promotion of inclusive, broad-based and sustainable economic growth which would help investing in the supply chain making it resilient, reliable and diversified and so, the advancement of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity is important. The need to have access to a convenient economic framework is vital as within the broader bandwidth of the Indo-Pacific. The ASEAN plays a major role in it by being the heart of the Indo-Pacific as it is home to markets, have a good upcoming skilled workforce and is at the crossroads of the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean. As per the ASEAN Outlook in the Indo-Pacific, it was opined that “Southeast Asia lies in the center of these dynamic regions and is a very important conduit and portal to the same” making it essential in shaping the architecture, economically and in the domain of security. Keeping this in mind, in the Trilateral Summit, the first Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment Corridor in the Indo-Pacific was announced by launching the Luzon Economic Corridor which would connect between Subic Bay, Clark, Manila, and Batangas in the Philippines. This economic corridor would help in the supply chain resilience and help in greater maritime supply chain connectivity globally.
Another domain that was discussed in the summit meeting was the need to work on developing critical and emerging technologies with a focus on open RAN which would not only help in the information communications technology ecosystem in the Philippines and but also, help develop a national Open RAN policy framework. The three countries also aimed to pursue a new semiconductor workforce development initiative where the students of Philippines would be giving training in the universities in the US and Japan and they would provide world class training which would ultimately help in the expansion of semiconductor investments in the Philippines. On 18th October 2024, another development took place where the 1st Japan, US, and Philippines Cyber-Digital Dialogue was held in Singapore and in this dialogue the three countries focused on CERT-to-CERT cooperation, Open RAN, undersea cables, and capacity building. Japan has also been looking for skilled digital talents which it would like to incorporate in the digital transformation work force which eventually the Philippines can provide and help generate employment for skilled work force from Philippines in the age of artificial intelligence.
All in all, one can say that the Philippines is one of the upcoming powers in the ASEAN as it has not only made its presence felt in the G7, but with the first of its kind maritime dialogue trilateral with the US and Japan while celebrating 75 years of relations with India.
