Philippines reveals key new US bases at flashpoint near China and Taiwan

Four new military bases to be used by United States forces in the Philippines will include areas in the north and west of the country, facing the flashpoints of Taiwan and the South China Sea, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos has revealed.

“There are four extra sites scattered around the Philippines – there are some in the north, there are some around Palawan, there are some further south,” Mr Marcos said on Wednesday during an event to mark the founding of the Philippine army.

His administration made a deal with Washington in February to allow rotating batches of US troops indefinite access to four new Philippine military bases in addition to five local camps earlier designated under a 2014 defence pact of the long-time treaty allies.

The agreement is key to US ambitions to create an arc of alliances in the Indo-Pacific to counter Beijing’s expansion and would grant its forces vital staging grounds in the event of a conflict in the Taiwan Strait or elsewhere in the contested South China Sea.

China has lashed out at the plans and has warned President Marcos that opening the door to US troops will “drag the Philippines into the abyss of geopolitical strife”.

Senior Chinese diplomats repeated their strong opposition to the US military presence at a closed-door meeting with their Philippine counterparts in Manila on Thursday.

But Mr Marcos has publicly defended the decision as his country ramps up its own efforts to defend its resource-rich coastal waters from Chinese territorial claims over features, reefs and islands.

On Wednesday, he said the exact location of the four new sites would be announced soon, adding that the measures would boost the country’s ability to defend its largest island, Luzon, which is the closest to Taiwan, and also Western Palawan province, which faces the South China Sea.

The US has reportedly asked for greater access to the provinces of Isabela, Zambales and Cayagan, all on the island of Luzon, as well as in Palawan.

The president said he had spoken to local leaders to allay their concerns about the development.

In an interview with the New York Times in February, Manuel Mamba, the governor of Cagayan, said he opposed the deployment of US troops as he feared it would make the province “a magnet for a nuclear attack” and the public would be “caught in the middle” of a conflict between the US and China.

Tensions continue to rise between Beijing and Washington as they jostle for influence in the Indo-Pacific.

On Thursday, China said it had tracked a US warship that “made an illegal incursion into Chinese territorial waters” in the South China Sea and "warned it to leave,” accusing the US of “harming peace and stability.”

China claims sovereignty over almost the entire South China Sea - a strategic waterway through which trillions of dollars in trade passes annually - despite an international court ruling that the assertion has no legal basis.

The United States regularly sends naval vessels through it to assert freedom of navigation in international waters and it refuted Beijing’s latest claims about chasing away the USS Milius destroyer.

"The USS Milius is conducting routine operations in the South China Sea and was not expelled. The United States will continue to fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows," a statement from the US Navy 7th Fleet said.