Such double standard. Such hypocrisy.
This week, China warned the Philippines was risking an “arms race” after the latter said it planned to acquire the US Typhon missile system to protect its maritime interests.
“The introduction of the mid-range missile system… by the Philippines is a provocative and dangerous move,” China foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning in a knee-jerk reaction said, warning the move “instigates geopolitical confrontation and an arms race.”
On Monday the Philippines, an archipelago of 7,107 islands, said it planned to acquire the US Typhon missile system to help secure its marine interests and oceangoing vessels.
The land-based “mid-range capability” Typhon, developed by the US firm Lockheed Martin for the US Army, has a range of 480 kilometers. A longer-range version is being developed.
The US Army deployed the mid-range missile system in northern Philippines earlier this year for annual joint military exercises with its longtime ally, and decided to leave it there despite criticism by Beijing that it was destabilizing to Asia.
Philippine military officials said the Typhon system would be able to protect vessels within the country’s 200-mile or 322-kilometer exclusive economic zone, the limit of its maritime entitlement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro could not have been more right when, reacting to China’s contentious stance, he said “The Philippines is a sovereign state, not any country’s ‘doorstep’.”
“Any deployment and procurement of assets related to the Philippines’ security and defense fall within its own sovereign prerogative and are not subject to any foreign veto,” he said in a statement.
Teodoro underlined that the country’s defense “is not targeted against specific countries” while asking China to stop its provocative actions (and) halt its interference in other countries’ internal affairs.”
Intriguingly, China is among eight countries – the seven others are the United States, Russia, India, France, Israel, Italy and United Kingdom – that developed missile defense systems.
China has sold military arms to many countries, including but not limited to Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru, as well as Myanmar and Thailand, the last two members of the 10-nation Association Of Southeast Asian nations like the Philippines.
Defense and military analysts have said China has an influential role in selling small arms and ammunition and has sold to countries in sub-Saharan Africa, and sold too unmanned aerial vehicles to the Iranian state’s armed force, which then distributed them to proxy groups in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen.
The same analysts observed that between 2019 and 2023, 85 percent of all Chinese arms exports went to Asian countries, and 61 percent went to a single state: Pakistan.
But when the Philippines wants to upgrade its defense capabilities to protect its interests, it risks an arms race?
Such self-serving duplicity, for crying out loud.
