Philippines may buy  Typhon missiles under Trump

Manila could seek to acquire mid-range missile system to train on China and answer Trump’s call on allies to spend more on defense.

 

Donald Trump’s re-election and the formation of a more hawkish national security team have inspired key allies to double down on their defense cooperation with America.

Trump has repeatedly stated that he expects allies to step up their defense spending and more directly contribute to preserving a US-led international security order.

The Philippines, which has been actively resisting China’s assertiveness in adjacent waters, appears ready to answer that call.

Having already acquired supersonic anti-ship BrahMos missile launchers from India, the Southeast Asian nation is now setting its sights on acquiring the much-vaunted US Mid-Range Capability (MRC) “Typhon” missile system.

Capable of launching both SM-6 and Tomahawk missiles, the Typhon is a mobile and land-based missile system that has a range of up to 2,500 kilometers.

That puts China’s military facilities, including its anti-cruise ballistic missiles (ACBMS), across both its southern provinces as well as the South China Sea, well within its crosshairs in the event of any contingency.

By hosting the Typhon system, the Philippines would be indispensable to any American military intervention should China decide to engage in kinetic action against Taiwan or any rival claimant state in the South China Sea.

After months of equivocating on the missile system’s status, Philippine National Security Adviser Eduardo Ano has made it clear that the Southeast Asian nation has not set any “timeline” for relinquishing Typhon, which is currently stationed in President Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s home province of Ilocos Norte.

If anything, Philippine Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro Jr has emphasized the country’s “right to acquire” the system outright in the near future. The system was deployed to the Philippines earlier this year for joint military exercises with the US.

In response, China’s state-run Global Times tabloid warned that the Philippines is “on track to become a real troublemaker in the South China Sea” with negative implications for bilateral relations and regional stability.

Eager to enhance its own deterrence capability, Manila is unlikely to budge under Beijing’s pressure. If anything, the Philippines has stepped up its efforts to assert its claims in adjacent waters.

Last week, President Marcos Jr signed new laws that demarcate the country’s baselines in the South China Sea in accordance with international law and its 2016 arbitral tribunal award at The Hague.

China immediately responded by summoning the Philippine Ambassador to Beijing and releasing a map to reinforce its own claims over the hotly-disputed Scarborough Shoal.

Having already released a “new map” that demarcated China’s “ten-dash line” covering much of the South China Sea and Gulf of Tonkin, China has now also set geographic coordinates for 16 base points around the Philippine-claimed shoal, which has been under China’s de facto control since 2012.

“Huangyan Dao [island] has always been China’s territory,” the Chinese foreign ministry said, using its name for the Scarborough Shoal. “This is a natural step by the Chinese government to lawfully strengthen marine management and is consistent with international law and common practices.”

Given the Scarborough Shoal’s proximity to Philippine shores and military facilities in Subic, Manila has repeatedly warned of a decisive response should Beijing reclaim and build military facilities on or around the feature.

According to Yuyuan Tantian, a social media channel affiliated with China’s state broadcaster CGNTN, “we hadn’t published [baselines around Scarborough Shoal] earlier [because] China has consistently taken a rational, restrained and responsible approach to handling maritime issues with neighboring countries.”

As China tightens the noose around Philippine-claimed features in the maritime area, the Southeast Asian state is doubling down on its defense cooperation with the US.

Although the Philippines lacks the funds to purchase submarines and stealth fighter jets like other key US allies, it can leverage its distinct geography – facing Taiwan, the South China Sea and the Western Pacific – by acquiring state-of-the-art missile systems.

The Typhon’s deployment to the Philippines earlier this year, ahead of the annual Balikatan exercises, marked the first time a mid-range missile system was positioned in the region following the dissolution of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty between US and Russia in 2019.

No less than Russian President Vladimir Putin sounded the alarm bells over the Typhon’s deployment earlier this year, recognizing the growing importance of missile systems to determining the course of great power competition in the Indo-Pacific.

Cognizant of the issue’s strategic and diplomatic sensitivity, both Manila and Washington initially equivocated on the precise status and operational details surrounding the Typhon’s deployment earlier this year.

With China showing no signs of compromise amid rising tensions in the South China Sea in recent months, however, the Marcos Jr administration has welcomed expanded defense cooperation with the West to enhance its deterrence and put Chinese assertiveness in check.

“We have no set timeline,” Philippine National Security Adviser Eduardo Ano said recently, making it clear that earlier announcements on the Typhon’s withdrawal from the Philippines were premature. “For now, we don’t plan to withdraw it. We need the Typhon missile system for training and enhancing our troops’ capabilities,” he said in a recent media interview.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines has admitted that its troops are already training with the MRC launcher system, particularly on mobility aspects, in anticipation of a possible direct purchase.

“We indeed plan to have this capability (the MRC system)…It adds depth and it increases deterrence,” Philippine Defense Secretary Teodoro told the media. “We will not compromise our right to acquire it within our territory,” he added.

Top Chinse security experts such as Xu Liping, director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, have called on the Philippines to approach the regional disputes with a “rational perspective, recognizing that the so-called purchase of any weapons will neither be helpful nor carry any significance.”
Hong Kong

For his part, Ang Xiao, deputy director of the Institute of Maritime Strategy Studies at China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, accused the Philippines of “playing victim” and relying on American weapons system, since “the Philippines has no other better way to pursue its illegal claim as it does not possess enough military capacity to carry out provocations…”

Recognizing its relatively limited military capability, the Marcos Jr administration is committed to modernizing the Philippines’ armed forces and adopting a more assertive stance in adjacent waters.

Earlier this year, the country introduced the Comprehensive Archipelagic Defense Concept (CADC) to underscore its strategic reorientation towards external security threats after decades of domestic insurgency operations.

For Teodoro, it’s time for the Philippines, which is expected to allocate as much as US$36 billion for military modernization over the next decade, to adopt a more proactive defense posture.

“I do believe that we need to put in a lot of [military] infrastructure in [our] eastern seaboard [for] air and naval basing,” he told media, referring to the country’s plans to place missile systems and advanced military facilities across its eastern shores facing the Western Pacific as well.

For Manila, the potential acquisition of the Typhon missile system is just one part of a grand strategy of making the Philippines a militarily capable and geopolitically indispensable actor in the Indo-Pacific. Amid intensified great power rivalry in Asia, this will likely be music to the ears of the incoming Trump 2.0 administration.