US Ally Doubles Down on Missiles Angering China
"It's none of China's business; it's for Philippine defense," Gilberto Teodoro said in a recent interview with 60 Minutes when asked to respond to Beijing's objections.
China asserts sovereignty over most of the South China Sea, citing historical rights-a position that puts it at odds with competing claims by the Philippines and several other neighbors. In recent years, Manila has stepped up its response to China's growing presence within the Philippine maritime zone.
Fierce clashes between Chinese and Philippine forces near disputed reefs have, on several occasions, left Philippine sailors injured. These incidents have put Manila's Mutual Defense Treaty with Washington in the spotlight, raising questions of whether U.S. forces could be drawn into a conflict with nuclear-armed China.
Newsweek reached out to the Chinese Foreign Ministry with a request for comment outside of office hours.
On the latest episode of 60 Minutes, which aired Sunday, Teodoro compared China to "the proverbial schoolyard bully." "It just muscles you over," he said.
The conversation turned to the Mid-Range Capability, or "Typhon" missile launcher, which the U.S. Army deployed to the Philippines ahead of joint military drills in April.
The system can be equipped with Tomahawk missiles-whose maximum range of 1,200 miles puts much of China's east coast within reach-as well as shorter-range Standard Missile 6s. Army officials have said the SM-6 is the only U.S. missile currently capable of intercepting a hypersonic missile, such as those possessed by China and Russia, in late flight.
China has repeatedly called for the Typhon to be removed from the Philippines.
Asked by interviewer Cecelia Vega whether the missiles are there to stay, Teodoro said he could neither confirm nor deny such a plan.
"What happens within our territory is for our defense," he said. "We follow international law. What's the fuss?"
Teodoro said he didn't know how the feud would end, but indicated the Philippines will not back down.
"All I know is that we cannot let [China] get away with what they're doing."
A Hague-based arbitral court's 2016 decision dismissed China's sweeping South China Sea claims. Beijing maintains that the ruling was politically motivated.
The 60 Minutes interview aired just two weeks after a tense back-and-forth between Teodoro and senior Chinese defense officials at the Shangri-La Dialogue defense forum in Singapore, where the Philippine official said a "deficit of trust" in China was the greatest obstacle to a solution to tensions in the South China Sea.
Ray Powell, the director of the Stanford University-affiliated maritime analysis group SeaLight, told 60 Minutes: "China has decided that at this point in their history, they are large enough so they can buck the law."
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said at the Shangri-La Dialogue defense summit in Singapore on May 31: "We're watching very closely China's destabilizing actions, and any unilateral attempt to change the status quo in the South China Sea and the First Island Chain-by force or coercion-is unacceptable."
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakuntold reporters in February: "The Philippines has worked with the U.S. to bring in the Typhon system. It's placing its national security and defense in the hands of others and introducing geopolitical confrontation and the risk of an arms race into the region…China will not sit idly by when its security interests are harmed or threatened."
Speaking with Newsweek on the sidelines of the Shangril-La Dialogue, Teodoro said Manila would seek to increase deterrence against China's activities in the Philippine exclusive economic zone by pushing for "international resonance" and "building up capability resilience."
The Philippines is expected to continue holding joint military exercises with the U.S. and other countries concerned with China's growing assertiveness, including Japan and Australia.
Last year, the U.S. pledged $500 million in military aid to its Southeast Asian ally.
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