WASHINGTON – President Biden said on Wednesday that the US military is ready to fight nuclear-armed China on behalf of the Philippines after ships from the two Asian countries collided near a disputed, uninhabited island in the South China Sea.
“The US defense agreement with the Philippines is ironclad. Any attack on Philippine aircraft, ships or military forces would invoke our mutual defense agreement with the Philippines,” Biden said during a joint press conference at the White House with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
The 1951 mutual defense pact said the US and the Philippines would jointly “defend themselves against external armed attack.”
On Sunday, two Manila warships collided with a Chinese vessel trying to block them from reaching the disputed Second Thomas Shoal, which is strategically located along an important commercial shipping route but is also flooded.
The Second Thomas Shoal is closer to the Philippines than China and is one of dozens of islands in the South China Sea disputed by China and the governments of neighboring countries including Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.
Biden has generally taken a more conciliatory approach to China and in the same Rose Garden speech recalled a past trip during his vice presidency with Chinese President Xi Jinping. He said he was looking for “competition” but “I’m not looking for conflict” with China.
House Republicans launched an impeachment inquiry last month into the president’s role in the foreign business dealings of his son Hunter and brother James Biden, including a pair of ventures with Chinese government-linked companies that generated millions of dollars in income for the Biden family.
President Biden said the US is ready to fight China on behalf of the Philippines after ships from the two countries collided in the South China Sea. Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images Footage of a collision between a Chinese Coast Guard vessel and a Philippine resupply boat near Second Thomas Shoal on Oct. 22 . 2023. Photo by HANDOUT/China Coast Guard /AFP via Getty Images According to Biden, any attack on “Philippine aircraft, ships or military forces would invoke our mutual defense agreement” with the country. Armed Forces of the Philippines via AP The Second Thomas Shoal is wrong one of dozens of islands in the South China Sea disputed by China and other countries in the region.Philippine Coast Guard/HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Biden met with his brother’s partner in both Chinese government-related ventures and at one point was tapped for a 10% cut of the venture that later netted his son and brother about $6.1 million.
Republicans have faulted Biden for not doing more to press China to be transparent about the origins of COVID-19, which killed more than 1.1 million Americans after a possible leak from a Wuhan lab, and for not condemning more strongly China’s record-breaking exports of fentanyl. -high US drug overdose deaths.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
