MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine government on Monday identified four new local military camps, including some across a sea border from Taiwan, where rotational batches of American forces with their weapons would be allowed to stay indefinitely despite strong objections from China.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.'s administration announced in February his approval of an expanded U.S. military presence in the country by allowing American forces to station in the four additional Philippine military bases under the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement between the longtime treaty allies.
The move would boost his country's coastal defense, Marcos said. It dovetails with the Biden administration's effort to strengthen an arc of military alliances in the Indo-Pacific to better counter China, including in any future confrontation over Taiwan.
The new sites identified by Marcos' office include a Philippine navy base in Santa Ana town and an international airport in Lal-lo town, both in northern Cagayan province. Those two locations have infuriated Chinese officials because they would provide U.S. forces with a staging ground close to southern China and Taiwan, the self-ruled island Beijing claims as its own.
The two other military areas are in northern Isabela province and on a local navy camp on Balabac island in the western province of Palawan.
Palawan faces the South China Sea, a key passage for global trade that…
