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11:28 05.02.2026 •
Pic.: ‘Geopolitical Monitor’
The Indo-Pacific has entered a more decisive phase. What once unfolded gradually at sea has now taken on sharper definition and intent. The January 2026 defense pact between Japan and the Philippines is more than another regional arrangement—it signals the formation of a new maritime front, linking two states that have learned, through sustained pressure, that shared security has become a strategic necessity, Australian ‘Geopolitical Monitor’ writes.
At its core, the Japan–Philippines pact institutionalizes what had already become a lived reality at sea. The Reciprocal Access Agreement and the Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement allow forces to train, refuel, co-locate and operate together. This is unprecedented for Japan outside its closest allies, and existential for the Philippines. For Tokyo, it signals a further step away from post-war strategic minimalism. For Manila, it reflects an unambiguous calculation: standing alone in the South China Sea has become untenable.
The numbers tell the story of why this shift matters. Chinese Coast Guard vessels have conducted more than 130 patrols around the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the past five years alone, many of them lingering for days at a time, testing Japanese resolve. In the South China Sea, the tempo is even more intense.
Quiet Deterrence
Against this backdrop, the pact reads less like provocation and more like accumulated fatigue finally translated into policy. Japan is already supplying the Philippines with coastal radar systems, patrol vessels and surveillance aircraft, alongside US$6 million in new infrastructure support for maritime facilities. Joint exercises involving Japan, the Philippines, Australia and the United States have multiplied, with four-nation drills held inside the Philippine exclusive economic zone in April 2024 reaffirming freedom of navigation and the binding nature of UNCLOS.
Beijing’s response has been predictably furious. State media warn of ‘quasi-alliances’ and accuse Tokyo of resurrecting militarism. A decade ago, Southeast Asia prided itself on strategic ambiguity. Today, ambiguity is increasingly seen as vulnerability. The Japan–Philippines pact is not an outlier; it is a symptom.
An Uneasy New Normal
When Tokyo and Manila speak of a rules-based order, freedom of navigation, and resistance to unilateral change, they are articulating a shared anxiety felt from Jakarta to Hanoi, from Singapore to Seoul. The sea has become a measure of trust, and trust, once eroded, is difficult to rebuild.
For ASEAN states, the implications are deeply personal. The South China Sea is not a distant chessboard; it is a pantry, a passageway, and a promise of development. Vietnam’s energy security depends on offshore fields repeatedly shadowed by foreign vessels. Malaysia’s fishermen navigate contested waters with growing unease. Indonesia, long insisting it is not a claimant, now finds the edges of its exclusive economic zone tested near the Natuna Islands. Each encounter chips away at the assumption that economic growth and strategic calm can coexist without collective effort.
The Japan–Philippines alignment crystallizes a reality many in ASEAN quietly acknowledge: neutrality offers diminishing shelter when pressure becomes persistent.
If the Indo-Pacific is to remain a region of opportunity rather than anxiety, this shared understanding must deepen. Law must be matched with solidarity, and solidarity with restraint. The alternative—a fragmented maritime order governed by intimidation—would impoverish not only economies, but the very idea that cooperation can outlast coercion. In that sense, the current moment is not simply strategic. It is moral, and its outcome will shape the region’s future long after the present crisis has passed.
Breaking New Ground in Japan-Philippines Relations
Think tanks across the region have noted the significance. Japan’s National Institute for Defence Studies describes the arrangement as the gradual formation of a ‘quasi-alliance’ driven less by ambition than by threat perception. Analysts have warned that, as the Philippines assumes the ASEAN chair in 2026, expectations of a breakthrough South China Sea code of conduct are likely to be disappointed, given deep internal divisions and China’s reluctance to constrain its own behavior. In this environment, bilateral and minilateral security ties are filling a vacuum that regional institutions cannot.
What emerges is a stark choice for the region’s future development. One path leads toward a dense web of cooperation—RAAs, joint patrols, shared logistics—designed to make coercion costly and escalation unattractive. The other leads toward fragmentation, where might steadily displaces right, and smaller states adjust through silence rather than resistance. The Japan–Philippines pact is a wager that the first path remains viable.
The seas of East and Southeast Asia have long been highways of exchange rather than frontlines. The tragedy would be to allow them to become permanent theatres of confrontation. The opportunity—still fragile, still contested—is that law, partnership, and measured strength might yet hold the line.
In that sense, the Japan–Philippines pact is not simply about defense. It is about whether the Indo-Pacific’s future is written by collision reports or by rules that still mean something when tested.
…The most astonishing thing about this story is that during World War II, the Japanese brought so much misery to the Philippines. And now they are "best friends" and even military allies. God works in mysterious ways...
The occupation of the Philippine islands by Japanese invaders inflicted numerous losses on the local population. Have the Philippines forgotten the genocide perpetrated by the Japanese aggressors?
The Filippines themselves wrote about this: "The Japanese also sent 'doctors' and 'surgeons' to the Philippines who performed experiments on the locals. Some of these experiments included amputation, dissection, and suturing of blood vessels in living people. The surgeons cruelly performed vivisection on the Filippinos. Before such experiments, the Japanese forced the victims to dig their own graves. In some cases, the bodies of the vivisected Filippinos were stitched back together, and then the victims were shot while still alive." In other cases, the vivisection victims were left with their bellies exposed, then dumped in graves, intestines and all, to die."
The new military alliance, based on hostility toward China, is the wrong political move and in rapidly changing geopolitical conditions it will not last long.
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