Photographer: Ted Aljibe / AFP / Getty Images
Photographer: Ted Aljibe / AFP / Getty Images
The Philippines said the government of US President Joe Biden promised that the United States would help the Southeast Asian nation if there was an armed attack in the South China Sea, repeating an earlier attack. promise made by the administration of former President Donald Trump.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Philippine Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin in a call that the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty between the two nations “will apply to armed attacks against the Philippines,” he said. the Manila envoy to Washington Jose Manuel Romualdez in a virtual forum organized by the association of foreign correspondents.
Team Biden taps into China’s claims for quick links to Asian allies
The US Department of State, separately statement on Wednesday, said Blinken spoke to Locsin about the application of the treaty “to armed attacks against Philippine armed forces, public vessels or aircraft in the Pacific, which includes the South China Sea.”
The guarantee comes amid Beijing’s continuing statement about its claims in the South China Sea, which overlap with those of Manila and other nations in the region. China recently passed a law that gives its coast guard more freedom to shoot foreign ships, a measure that may increase the risk of miscalculation in disputed waters and that the Philippines protested.