Pivot Progress in Manila - Wall Street Journal

April 28, 2014 12:34 p.m. ET

Barack Obama's Asia tour is ending with a deal signed Monday to increase U.S. military access to ports, bases and airfields in the Philippines. Two decades after Manila booted U.S. personnel from the country, China's aggressive rise has Filipinos strengthening their longtime alliance with America.

Under the 10-year deal, the U.S. will rotate troops, planes, ships and other military assets through Philippine territory at Manila's invitation. Their missions will range from disaster relief to training, surveillance and security operations around the South China Sea. In keeping with the Philippine constitution, the U.S. won't own or have exclusive use of bases, and Filipino commanders will have access to all areas shared with U.S. forces. Washington has similar rotational-force agreements with Australia and Singapore.

Officials haven't specified where U.S. forces will operate, but one likely spot is Subic Bay, formerly America's largest overseas naval base, which offers quick access to the northern waters of the South China Sea. Some 125 miles away is Scarborough Shoal, the rich fishing territory grabbed from the Philippines by Chinese maritime forces in 2012. U.S. forces may also use Oyster Bay and Brooke's Point in the southwestern province of Palawan, a short cruise from the disputed Spratly Islands. That's where last month China began illegally blockading an outpost of Philippine marines on Second Thomas Shoal.

President Barack Obama talks to journalists during a press conference at Malacanang Presidential Palace in Manila, Philippines on April 28, 2014. European Pressphoto Agency

China doesn't like that the Philippines, Japan and others are trying to resist its territorial revanchism, through ties to Washington and by investing in defense and pushing for international arbitration under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The Philippines has a woefully weak military—it boasts zero fighter jets and, as of 2010, only 32 boats patrolling 36,000 miles of coastline—yet China's state-run Xinhua news agency labels it the "trouble-maker in the South China Sea." The new basing deal with Washington, a Xinhua commentary charged on Monday, will allow Manila "to confront China with U.S. backing."

As Beijing knows, Washington has stopped short of backing Manila in the territorial disputes where China has been most confrontational. President Obama affirmed last week in Tokyo that the U.S.-Japan mutual defense treaty would apply to the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, but he and his aides have avoided such assurances about Philippine-controlled territory in the South China Sea. "Our treaty obligations are ironclad," Mr. Obama said Sunday, but the Philippine marines at Second Thomas Shoal apparently fall outside those obligations.

In February Philippine President Benigno Aquino went as far as comparing China's territorial assertiveness to Adolf Hitler's in 1938. Mr. Aquino celebrated the new basing agreement at a press conference Monday, highlighting the Philippine military's opportunity to train on and eventually procure advanced systems such as the tilt-rotor V-22 Osprey aircraft.

Philippine public opinion is favorable toward the U.S. (and suspicious of China), but some elites still hold the anti-American views that prevailed when the Senate voted to expel U.S. forces in 1991. This partly explains why the new basing agreement isn't going to the Senate for ratification. The Philippine constitution doesn't require Senate assent, and officials likely fear that even a successful ratification would involve a protracted and nasty public debate. Thus the pact is only an executive agreement—meaning that after Mr. Aquino is term-limited from office in 2016, his successor could back out.

The likelihood of that outcome will depend on the success of U.S.-Philippine cooperation, and of the broader U.S. pivot to Asia. China's belligerence will likely continue to alienate the Philippine public, but the U.S. will need an effective strategy and firm commitment so future leaders in Manila don't fall under China's sphere of military influence.

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