You’d want to militarily cooperate with neighbors as well if you were the Philippines and determined to resist, not appease, the giant totalitarian bully next door (China-Taiwan Weekly Update, May 9, 2025).
The Philippines and Japan agreed on April 29 to begin negotiations over combined exercises, intelligence-sharing, and logistical support. These negotiations build upon the Reciprocal Access Agreement that the two countries reached in July 2024….
The Philippines and Japan have increased their military cooperation significantly in recent years, citing concerns over PRC maritime assertiveness. The Philippines and New Zealand separately signed a Status of Visiting Forces Agreement (SOVFA) on April 30, allowing both countries to conduct combined exercises and other cooperative military activities in one another’s territory.
The Philippines has similar agreements with the United States and Australia and is pursuing another such agreement with France. Additionally, Philippine Navy spokesperson Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad said that the Philippine and Taiwanese navies are discussing cooperation in the Taiwan Strait in participation with other regional partners.
The PRC objects to such military cooperation. It prefers supine and immobile victims.
Recall campaigns
Other items in the recent Update include competing recall campaigns in Taiwan.
Campaigns to recall Kuomintang legislators, members of the opposition political party that these days tends to prefer appeasing Red China, are doing better than campaigns to recall members of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, which tends to prefer resistance to the oppressor. Proponents of recalling KMT lawmakers accuse them of undermining the country’s constitutional order and ability to defend itself.
“Petitions to recall 27 KMT legislators have collected enough signatures to trigger recall votes and are now awaiting approval from the Central Election Commission,” the Update reports. “Another two petitions are just a few hundred signatures short of meeting the threshold as of May 8. Recall petitions need signatures from 10 percent of the voters in an electoral district to trigger a referendum to recall the representative of that district from the Legislative Yuan. There are separately 15 recall petitions targeting DPP legislators, but none are currently close to getting enough signatures to trigger a recall vote.”
Somalia
Somalia’s refusal, at the instigation of the PRC, to let holders of Republic of China passports enter the country is also in the news.
“Somalia’s civil aviation authority issued an order on April 22, which took effect on April 30, that Taiwanese passports would no longer provide valid entry, exit, or transit through Somalia. The move made Somalia one of a small handful of countries—along with Georgia, Moldova, and Venezuela—to ban Taiwanese passport-holders. Most countries do not have diplomatic relations with Taiwan but still recognize Taiwanese passports.”
