US secures deal on bases to complete arc around China
The US has secured access to four additional military bases in the Philippines- a key bit of real estate which would offer a front seat to monitor the Chinese in the South China Sea and around Taiwan.
With this deal, Washington has stitched the gap in the arc of US alliances stretching from South Korea and Japan in the north to Australia in the south. The missing link had been the Philippines, which borders two of the biggest potential flashpoints, Taiwan and the South China Sea, or the West Philippine Sea as Manila insists on calling it.
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