Of course, there have always been Balikatan exercises with the US since the time of President Joseph Estrada, but more so now, with the implementation of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement that allows the Americans to make use of some of our bases.This reminded me of the time some decades ago, when there were actually US bases here, which were little US 'territories' in our islands. You see, my father worked as a driver of one of these American personnel.
is just part of a larger US program of putting military installations in what is called the 'first island chain,' which include the archipelago of Japan, to deter China's expansion and a possible invasion of Taiwan , an island so important to the Americans because it is one of the major sources of the world's microchips.I always wondered for some time now who began this renewed Asia pivot by the Americans.
It was the Asean-US Post-Ministerial Conference in Hanoi, Vietnam, on July 23, 2010, that, according to Landler, the Asean ministers 'urged China to accept a multilateral approach to settling these disputes rather than its preferred method of dealing with the smaller countries one-on-one' when, as the last speaker, Hillary Rodham Clinton, fresh as the newly appointed Secretary of State, made a bold statement.