MANILA — In a strategic setback for China, the Philippine government Tuesday said it was suspending termination of a longstanding military pact with the United States that President Rodrigo Duterte has criticized as unfair.
The Philippine foreign secretary, Teodoro Locsin, made Tuesday’s announcement over Twitter, saying that he had informed Washington of the suspension in a diplomatic note. The decision was made “in light of political and other developments in the region,” Locsin said in the diplomatic note, without elaboration.
The United States welcomed the reversal. “Our longstanding alliance has benefited both countries, and we look forward to continued close security and defense cooperation with the Philippines,” the US Embassy in Manila said.
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Political analysts interpreted the reversal as a sign that China’s neighbors are worried about its growing military assertiveness. The Philippines, Vietnam, and Malaysia all have disputes with China about its territorial claims in the South China Sea.
Some analysts saw the reversal as a strategic gain for the United States, given that the Philippines is the only US treaty ally near the South China Sea, a vital maritime shipping route.
In February, Duterte had ordered the termination of the Visiting Forces Agreement, endangering a security blanket for the Philippines, which has been facing increasingly hostile Chinese actions in the South China Sea. Under the agreement, Washington and Manila had 180 days after the issuance of a termination notice — until August, in this case — to try to salvage the deal.
The pact permitted the US military to conduct large-scale joint exercises in the Philippines, decades after the Americans were evicted from naval bases north of Manila because of lease disagreements.
Duterte’s decision to end the military alliance had followed Washington’s refusal to grant a visa to the Philippine lawmaker, Ronald dela Rosa, the early architect of Duterte’s violent war against drugs.
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The notice to terminate the Visiting Forces Agreement came as Duterte was warming up to China while distancing himself from the United States, the Philippines’ former colonial ruler, and alarmed those in his administration who saw the alliance as a cornerstone of Philippine security and a counterweight to China’s growing regional naval might.