Late last month, a wire news report indicated the United States military is holding talks with the Philippine government to develop a civilian port in Batanes province.
The report did not say whether the US is talking with officials of Batanes province—and, presumably, with the Department of National Defense and the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
But what is clear is that the planned development of the Batanes port for military use, if it comes to pass, would boost American access to strategically located islands facing Taiwan.
The spokesperson of the US Embassy in Manila was quoted in the news report as saying the US Embassy and US Army Pacific (Usarpac) officials and experts had been talking with the Batanes governor and local government, “at their request, to discuss ways Usarpac can support engineering, medical and agricultural development projects in the province.”
Batanes province lies less than 200 kilometers from Taiwan, which China claims is a renegade province that must be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary.
The Bashi Channel between Batanes and Taiwan is considered a choke point for vessels moving between the western Pacific and the contested South China Sea and a key waterway in the case of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
The Chinese military regularly sends ships and aircraft through the channel, according to Taiwan’s defense ministry.
This news report is likely to send alarm bells ringing wildly in Beijing as the plan could “stoke the fires” of already simmering tension in this part of the Pacific.
Batanes Governor Marilou Cayco, however, has said she had sought funding from the US for building an “alternative port” in Basco island that would assist in unloading cargo from Manila in rough seas during the monsoon season.
She said she was seeking investments to build seaports and airports in the island province with a population of 18,000.
The province could also offer safe haven to Filipinos fleeing Taiwan if conflict breaks out there, according to Batanes local government officials.
But two other unnamed Filipino officials said the US military had visited Batanes recently to discuss the planned port.
The AFP is said to be interested in the possible installation of radar and other monitoring facilities in the area.
If China has already built artificial islands even in our Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) complete with airstrips and even suspected missile sites on the basis of its dubious and mythical “ten-dash line” covering nearly all of the South China Sea, what should stop us from asking for US help to build a port right in our northernmost island for combined civilian and military use?