Australian and Philippine defense chiefs meet as disputes simmer over the South China Sea

MANILA, Philippines — Australia’s defense minister and his Philippine counterpart are meeting in Manila on Friday for talks spotlighting their concern over Beijing’s actions in the South China Sea, where Filipino forces were on alert after China deployed a larger number of coast guard forces closer to Manila’s military ship outpost in a fiercely disputed atoll.

Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles is visiting while Australian forces engage in their largest combat exercises with the Philippine military, involving more than 3,600 military personnel in live-fire drills and battle maneuvers. Marles has been invited to witness a mock amphibious beach assault by Australian and Filipino naval forces over the weekend in a western Philippine town facing the South China Sea, Philippine military officials said.

After their meeting, Marles and Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. will sign a joint statement of intent to further boost defense cooperation and affirm “their resolve to enhance interoperability, collective deterrence and long-term military readiness … to promote regional security and stability,” according to Philippine defense officials.

The exercises called Alon, Tagalog for wave, will showcase Australia’s growing firepower. The drills will involve an Australian guided-missile navy destroyer, F/A-18 supersonic fighter jets, a C-130 troop and cargo aircraft, Javelin anti-tank weapons and special forces sniper weapons.

China has raised alarm over such combat exercises in or near the disputed waters, which it claims almost in its entirety, but where the United States and its treaty allies, Australia and the Philippines, have staged joint naval patrols and drills with other countries to boost deterrence against threats to freedom of navigation and overflight.

China’s military have separately confronted U.S., Australian and Philippine ships and aircraft in alarmingly close calls to assert what Beijing calls its sovereignty and sovereign rights in the strategic waterway, a key global trade route, sparking fear of a larger conflict that may involve American forces and their allies in what has long been regarded as an Asian flashpoint.

The large combat drills between Australia and the Philippines, from Aug. 15-29, coincide with a new territorial faceoff between Chinese and Philippine forces in the Second Thomas Shoal. The Philippine navy deliberately grounded a warship in 1999 at the shoal to serve as its territorial outpost….