A member of the Philippine coast guard vessel BRP Malabrigo mans his post while being shadowed by a Chinese coast guard ship at Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratly Islands in the disputed South China Sea. (Photo by TED ALJIBE/AFP via Getty Images)
SYDNEY — The Philippines is readying to step up efforts to secure its waters in the South China and so-called West Philippine seas as a result of a recent Quad meeting, which could also leave China facing increased international maritime pressure.
In a White House fact sheet about the Quad gathering, held in Wilmington, Del., Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia, Prime Minister Kishida Fumio of Japan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India and US President Joe Biden, made clear that their coast guards would work together increasingly closely.
The four maritime security organizations “plan to launch a first-ever Quad-at-Sea Ship Observer Mission in 2025 in the Indo-Pacific to improve interoperability,” the fact sheet said. “Through this effort, members of Japan Coast Guard, Australian Border Force, and Indian Coast Guard will spend time on board a U.S. Coast Guard vessel operating in the Indo-Pacific. The Quad intends to continue with further missions in the Indo-Pacific.”
All this happens in the shadow of the aggressive and often dangerous operations by Chinese ships and planes apparently intended to compel the Philippines and other nations in the disputed waters to cede control. China has no valid claims to them, according to a United Nations tribunal ruling. China simply argues that, while it works closely with the UN on many issues, it does not accept the organization’s decision.
The Philippines spokesman on the West Philippine Sea and special advisor to the Coast Guard commandant, Commodore Jay Tristan, said today the US Coast Guard is already helping train Philippine personnel in the US and executing trilateral exercises with Japanese ships. Speaking at the Australian National Press Club in Canberra, Tristan said, “We have been engaging with the United States Coast Guard in a lot of different issues, whether maritime safety, search and rescue, … law enforcement, combating piracy, and for exercises that we have with the Japanese Coast Guard.”
However, Tristan said bilateral sailing operations with the US Coast Guard “is something that has not yet been discussed.”
The commander of US Coast Guard Indo-Pacific operations, Vice Adm. Andrew Tiongson, told regional reporters that he will “work very closely with those nations to ensure that we’re operating in the correct place, the correct time, and actually exercising the correct things. … We always seek to meet our partners where they are, what they need, and always seeing the threats and challenges through their eyes.”
Outlining how the US works with the three other Quad members, he added, “in the planning stage” of engaging with partners, they need to “figure out the exact locations that we’ll conduct these operations” carry out “this at-sea ship observer mission — and hopefully we can do that and improve our interoperability as services together.” As with the Philippine-US ship sailings, Tiongson said there are “no specifics on that just yet, but we are open to a lot of input from our partners.”
While not all four nations have had sailors together on one ship, they have worked “to share insights about how each one of us does our business in terms of maritime law enforcement, search and rescue, maritime security — all of those types of operations that we conduct,” Tiongson said.
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Author: Colin Clark
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