Washington’s top diplomat and defense chief, in Manila for talks Tuesday, will announce $500 million in military funding to boost Philippine defenses and progress in a proposed military pact, given that China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the region “will not stop,” a Philippine official said.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin called on President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who has fortified Manila’s decades-old treaty alliance with Washington as hostilities between Philippine and Chinese forces flared since last year in the disputed South China Sea.
Marcos welcomed Blinken and Austin, praising the “very open” communication lines between Washington and Manila so that their treaty alliance and the issues on the South China Sea and the Indo-Pacific region “are continuously examined and reexamined so we are agile in terms of our responses.”