China’s fraught relationship with Japan and its many maritime disputes with the Philippines are uniting the two archipelago nations against a common adversary. Tokyo and Manila also fear the geopolitical consequences of a successful Chinese attack on Taiwan, which would shatter the “first island chain”.
Illustration by Sam Ward
On May 6 Japanese troops sank a foreign naval vessel in Philippine waters for the first time since World War Two. The vessel was the BRP Quezon, a minesweeper commissioned by the U.S. Navy in 1944 and acquired by the Philippines in 1967. Positioned 75 kilometers off the northern Luzon coast, the ship went to the bottom after being hit by two new Japanese Type 88 anti-ship missiles. It was a demonstration of growing defense ties between Japan and the Philippines — and a warning to China.
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From Mike Mansfield to Max Baucus and Steve Daines, Montana has been the unlikely source of America’s most influential China-hand senators over the past half-century. But amidst spy balloons, trade wars and mutual paranoia, being a proponent for rational and beneficial relations between the two countries has never been harder.
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