The Balikatan plans have angered China, whose Foreign Ministry said bringing in other countries to “safeguard [the Philippines’] so-called security will only lead to greater insecurity for itself”.

Balikatan means “shoulder to shoulder”, and this year’s exercise begins on Monday amid months of heightened Chinese belligerence in the South China Sea, and days after Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr met his American and Japanese counterparts in Washington to discuss co-operation.

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Australia’s limited role in the exercises remained unclear. The Australian Defence Force could not answer basic questions, including the number of personnel it was sending.

Logico believed the Australian contingent numbered about 150, which would be more than last year. But he said France was the only other country participating in the “multilateral maritime exercise” off Palawan.

The Australian navy joined in a smaller show of support in the South China Sea earlier this month alongside the Philippines, US and Japan. Last Wednesday, Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles announced an extra $50 billion for the military over the next decade in response to the Chinese threat.

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Asia-based author and academic Richard Heydarian said Australian and Japanese roles in Balikatan were still “low-key”, but both nations had been steadily increasing their regional presence.

“I think what we’re going to see this year is how Australia, along with Japan, are going to be more and more pivotal to the overall security strategy in this part of the world, particularly in terms of creating a strong, integrated deterrence strategy against China,” he said.

“You can really see that the Philippines is emerging as a common platform, and as a kind of frontier, of rules-based order efforts from the United States and its regional allies.”

The most recent and visible form of Chinese aggression in the South China Sea has been repeated water cannon attacks and blocking manoeuvres against Philippine supply vessels attempting to reach a small cadre of personnel stationed on the Sierra Madre, which is an intentionally beached ship serving as a Second Thomas Shoal outpost within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.

Balikatan will involve almost 17,000 defence personnel, overwhelmingly from the US and Philippines, and end with a closing ceremony on May 10.

With Jeoffrey Maitem

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