THIS week, at the Raisina Dialogue in India, the Philippines voiced its inclination to expand Squad, the informal grouping of like-minded nations, formed in May 2024, to counter China’s assertive behavior in the Indo-Pacific region.
The Dialogue, an annual multilateral conference held annually in New Delhi since 2016, has emerged as India’s flagship conference on geopolitics and geo-economics.
In its widest sense, the term geopolitically covers all nations and islands surrounding either the Indian Ocean or the Pacific Ocean, encompassing mainland African and Asian nations who border these oceans, like India and South Africa, Indian Ocean territories like Kerguelen Islands and Seychelles.
There, the Philippines’ Armed Forces chief Gen. Romeo Brawner voiced the country’s wish to expand the Squad grouping to include India and South Korea to counter China’s growing maritime power in a vast biogeographic area.
As a distinct marine realm, the region has an exceptionally high species richness, with the world’s highest species richness found at its heart in the Coral Triangle and a remarkable gradient of decreasing species richness radiating outward in all directions.
The region includes over 3,000 species of fish, compared with around 1,200 in the next richest marine region, the Western Pacific, and around 500 species of reef building corals, compared with about 50 species in the Western Atlantic
The Indo-Pacific region comprises the tropical waters of the Indian Ocean, the western and central Pacific Ocean, and the seas connecting the two. It is at present composed of Australia, Japan, the Philippines and the United States.
The present members’ defense forces have conducted joint maritime activities in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea since last year and have cooperated on activities like military patrols, intelligence sharing, as well as joint exercises and operations.
Brawner’s remarks in New Delhi come at a time when Manila and Beijing have had several rocketing confrontations in the disputed waters of the South China Sea.
We join the general in his pitch for expansion, when Brawner said the AFP was making efforts to improve its deterrence capabilities, including by expanding its joint operations with its Squad partners.
“Together with Japan and our partners we are trying to expand the Squad to include India and probably South Korea,” Brawner added.
“And I’m not afraid to say China is our common enemy. It’s important that we collaborate together, maybe exchange intelligence.”
We have seen recently increased tensions between China and the Philippines in the West Philippine Sea, well within the latter’s 200-mile exclusive economic zone, where the China Coast Guard and maritime militia had repeatedly trespassed.
This resulted in dangerous encounters between the CCG and Philippine Coast Guard and Fisheries Bureau vessels, in which the latter have been chased, rammed, and hit with high-pressure water cannons.
We are with Gen. Brawner, and raise our hopes the Squad will in fact be expanded before much too long.