In less than two weeks, President Joe Biden will greet Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in Washington for the first trilateral summit of the three leaders. According to the White House, the summit seeks to boost economic cooperation, advance alternative supply chains and “further peace and security in the Indo-Pacific and around the world.”
But make no mistake about it. This summit is really about one thing and one thing only: China.
The Asian superpower has been flexing its muscles in the South China Sea, which Beijing claims almost in its entirety. Chinese and Philippine vessels have engaged in numerous unarmed clashes in the key waterway, with the People’s Liberation Army, or PLA, coast guard obstructing Philippine ships from resupplying sailors based on the Second Thomas Shoal, less than 200 nautical miles west of the Philippines’ main island of Palawan.
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