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According to the report, the bases are listed in the U.S. Overseas Basing Commission as "cooperative security locations," or CSLs, a new category of offshore U.S. military base. The group's report, "At the Door of all the East: The Philippines in United States' Military Strategy," said the U.S. Overseas Basing Commission, a body created by the U.S. Congress to review the ongoing realignment of U.S. military presence around the world, lists the Philippines among the countries where CSLs are being developed.
The group named two international airports in Manila, the Mactan International Airport in Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu province, and General Santos City International Airport in Sarangani province, as well as former U.S. military bases Subic and Clark in Zambales and Pampanga provinces among the "secret bases."
It said CSLs are categorized as U.S. military installations that are nominally owned by host governments but are to be provided for U.S. use when needed. These CSLs are also known as "lily pads," intended to allow troops to hop from their larger base to their destination rapidly when necessary.
As expected, political activists in Manila have condemned what they called a top secret between Washington and the Manila government. One of the groups who have opposed the presence of the bases has prodded the Philippine Senate committees on national defense and foreign relations to investigate the alleged "high crime of treason" committed by the Philippine government in allowing these facilities to be used by U.S. troops in their military buildup and operations in the Philippines to strengthen their hegemony over Asia.
But is China a real threat to U.S. military power in Asia?
Journalist and political analyst Professor Bobby Tuazon of the Center for Anti-Imperialist Studies said the current Chinese leadership is pragmatic enough not to engage the United States in a military competition, now or in the immediate future, that could be seen as a challenge to U.S. military supremacy, particularly in East Asia.
In his paper, "Hegemony or Cooperation: Major Contradictions in East Asia Today," Tuazon said that since 1979, following Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping's modernization campaign and after cutting off ties with national liberation movements, the Beijing government has officially pursued a policy of promoting international peace as the basis for China's modernization in the context of its integration into the global capitalist system.
The only exceptions, according to Tuazon, are China's claims over Taiwan and the South China Sea, particularly over the Spratly Islands where China has flexed its military muscle.
"Persistent accusations that China is building up its military in order to establish its own hegemony in the region and challenge the U.S. military supremacy that would alter the regional 'balance of power' remain strong, but are mainly voiced by neoconservatives in the U.S. government, particularly by U.S. President George W. Bush, the Pentagon, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the Central Intelligence Agency and the pro-Taiwan lobby groups and other rightist elements and think tanks," the Manila professor said.
Tuazon said Washington is justifying its military buildup in Asia against China because the latter maintains the world's largest army at 2.5 million troops, although Beijing has traditionally justified this as a necessity given China's large mass of land that shares borders with countries with which it has had armed hostilities, particularly Russia and India in South Asia, as well as Vietnam in Southeast Asia.
Tuazon further said the presence of U.S. secret bases and the year-round activities of U.S. troops in the Philippines are trying to hit two birds with one stone. While assuring its supremacy in Asia and the Pacific, Washington wants to check the rising tide of the 39-year-old Maoist armed revolution in the Philippine countryside and spoil the political influence of leftist and progressive political organizations critical of the U.S. agenda throughout the Philippine archipelago.
Another justification raised by anti-China propagandists is that China is rapidly developing cruise and other anti-ship missiles designed to destroy the electronic defenses of U.S. vessels that might be dispatched to the Taiwan Strait in case of conflict.
Manila-based political expert Sonny Africa of the Institute for Political Economy said the United States is raising the phantom of China's emerging as a super economic and political power to justify its increasing military power in Asia.
The United States maintains 100,000 troops in Asia and the Pacific under the U.S. Pacific Command, with 80,000 troops based in Japan and Korea. But political experts in Manila said the United States plans to deploy more troops and make them mobile and ready in the event of any conflict, and Washington is also considering the military strength of other countries in executing its plans for military dominance.
The United States is closely monitoring the capacity and capability of China's 2.5 million troops, North Korea's 1 million troops, South Korea's 600,000 troops, Vietnam's 480,000 troops and Taiwan's 350,000 troops. The United States has successfully clinched working military alliances and agreements with Vietnam, Taiwan, South Korea, Australia and Japan to probably check China and maintain Washington's military dominance over Asia for the purpose of pushing its economic agenda further.
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(Gerry Albert Corpuz is a correspondent of Bulatlat.com, an alternative Philippine online news site. He is also the head of the information department of Pamalakaya, a national federation of small fisherfolk organizations in the Philippines. His website is www.gerryalbertcorpuz.motime.com, and he can be contacted at themanager98@yahoo.com. ©Copyright Gerry Albert Corpuz.)
