Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr arrives in Japan on Wednesday for a visit that is expected to pave the way for closer security ties with Tokyo, as Manila increasingly sides with the United States in its regional tussle with China.
At a press briefing last week, Neil Imperial, the Philippines Assistant Secretary for Asian and Pacific Affairs, said Marcos wanted to "facilitate closer defence, security, political, economic and people-to-people ties" while in Japan.
A year ago, Japan and Australia signed a visiting forces agreement, allowing them to deploy forces on each other's soil, with Tokyo concluding a similar accord with Britain last month. Those deals provide a framework for how Marcos and Kishida could also forge deeper military ties to counter their common adversary, say experts.
Taiwan, which lies between Japan and the Philippines, has become a focal point of intensifying Chinese military activity that Tokyo and Washington worry could escalate into war as Beijing tries to capture what it views as a rogue province. By gaining access to bases in the Philippines, Japan would extend the range of its defence forces, including surveillance aircraft that could patrol the South China Sea, according to Ken Jinbo, a professor at Keio University in Japan, who also served as a government security advisor.
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