Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro on Monday announced that a unified “one-theater” approach in both the East and South China seas will soon rise.
The Department of National Defense (DND) chief said it was “reasonable” to treat both the East and South China seas as a single area of operation, as both are maritime areas with no land borders involved.
However, he said the area should exclude the Korean Peninsula.
“That will involve synergy in operations, synergy in domain awareness, in intelligence exchange, and in mutually reinforcing our strengths to work doubly real-time,” Teodoro said.
The Philippines and China have clashed frequently in the South China Sea around disputed shoals and atolls that fall inside Manila’s exclusive economic zone. Japan and China have likewise repeatedly faced off over uninhabited Japanese-administered islands in the East China Sea that Tokyo calls the Senkaku and Beijing calls the Diaoyu.
Japan’s Joint Operations Command is operationalizing the single-theater concept. Meanwhile, the “squad” grouping that includes the defense ministers of Australia, Japan, the Philippines, and the United States will establish a coordinating center in December to enforce it, according to the Defense Secretary.
“So it is already an operating concept. It does not need any other agreement,” Teodoro said.
