My foreign policy guy - George Friedman - takes a look at the map of Asia and concludes that there is a heck of an incentive for China to cut a deal with the Philippines for basing rights. The issue is continued freedom of navigation to and from China to the world.
Of course China has such access now. The issue is whether at some point in a future conflict the U.S. might effectively blockade the Chinese coastal ports, shutting off their export market and crippling the Chinese economy.
If China had military base rights in the Philippines, a blockade would be very difficult to achieve. This creates an enormous incentive for Philippine leadership to play off U.S. and Chinese interests against each other to see which wealthy country will deliver the larger package of “incentives” to poor Manila.
Of course, the role of the Philippines as a former U.S. colony complicates these relationships, in both positive and negative directions. A substantial number of Filipinos live happily in the U.S., probably not true of China.
