"With the concerted efforts of regional countries, the situation in the South China Sea has maintained overall stability. The US-Philippines defense guidelines is a bilateral arrangement," Mao said. "China firmly opposes any country’s move to meddle in the South China Sea issue to harm China’s territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests by citing the guidelines," she added.
WASHINGTON—The US is not looking to put up a new Quad in East Asia made up of itself, the Philippines, and a few other countries, a US State Department official has said. According to US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel J. Kritenbrink, the US has been only showing its commitment to the Indo-Pacific and its allies.
WASHINGTON—Defense Department officer in charge Carlito Galvez and US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Wednesday established the bilateral defense guidelines between the two countries to modernize the alliance cooperation "for a free and open Indo-Pacific region." According to a fact sheet from the US Department of Defense, the guidelines "reaffirmed that an armed attack in the Pacific, including anywhere in the South China Sea, on either of their aircraft or armed forces – which includes their Coast Guards – would invoke mutual defense commitments under the 1951 PH-US Mutual Defense Treaty."
“Beyond that, there are also issues, geopolitical issues that make the region. the Philippines is, possibly, arguably the most complicated geopolitical situation in the world right now,” Marcos said. “And so it is only natural that. for the Philippines to look to its sole treaty partner in the world, to strengthen and to redefine the relationship that we have and the roles that we play in the face of these. tensions that we see now around the South China Sea and the Asia-Pacific and Indo-Pacific region,” he added.