In a major escalation of war games near China, the armed forces of the Philippines and US troops are holding the largest annual Balikatan military exercises in history. From 11 to 28 April, 12,200 US military personnel, 5,400 Philippine forces and 111 Australian troops are taking part in the drills. Balikatan—meaning “shoulder-to-shoulder” in Tagalog, the national language—will be the first time Philippine and US forces engage in live-fire exercises at sea.
The joint operations come just weeks after the Philippine government expanded US military access to nine bases in the country. Under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement signed in 2014, the US military has access to Philippine bases for joint training, pre-positioning of equipment and building of facilities.
On 3 April, the Philippines announced the locations of four additional sites, nearly doubling the US military’s prospective footprint in the archipelago. The Philippines is a key US ally, and the largest recipient of US military assistance, equipment and training in South-East Asia.
Of the four new EDCA sites, three are in northern Luzon, just 400 kilometres from Taiwan, while one is in Palawan, near the disputed Spratly Islands.
In opposition to the US military presence, about 7,000 people gathered in Cagayan, a province in Luzon, in a 17 April rally organised by Prayer for Peace Cagayan Movement.
Clarita Lunas, retired regional supervisor from the Department of Education, told media that the prayer rally was organised after a naval base in Santa Ana and the Lal-lo Airport were selected as locations for the US military to stock weapons and equipment. Governor Manuel Mamba remarked at the prayer gathering that EDCA “is just war” amid rising tensions between China and Taiwan, according to the Manila Standard.
“We want Cagayan to be the centre of agro-industrial hubs in the international port, not the centre of foreign military bases whose clear objective is to enable war between America and China”, he said.
There were also smaller protests in the capital, Manila, outside of the US embassy on the first night of Balikatan exercises. “We are against this, firstly, on the basis that the Balikatan exercises are disastrous for our citizens and the country”, an organiser of the protest, the League of Filipino Students national president, told 24 Oras, a national TV news program.
“You’re just a performing fucking monkey”. A racist barb, and one of many pointed moments in Jacky, a Melbourne Theatre Company production currently playing at the Arts Centre. Jacky is about the politics of performing monkeys. It is about racism and exploitation, hypocrisy and resistance.
Academic workers at Rutgers University in New Jersey have achieved a stunning victory with a serious campaign of industrial action, centred on an open-ended strike. Their approach is a model for unionists in Australia.
The South Australian government has followed New South Wales and Victoria to undermine democratic rights. A bi-partisan bill has been rushed through parliament’s lower house, which proposes fines up to $50,000 or three months in jail if protesters “intentionally or recklessly obstruct the public place”.
NTEU Fightback, a rank-and-file union group of the National Tertiary Education Union at the University of Sydney, is calling on staff to vote No in the upcoming ballot on the proposed enterprise agreement. The campaign was launched at a forum on 25 May, attended by over 50 people. A members’ meeting on 13 June will consider the agreement. This week will probably be the first time that members are provided with a full list of proposed changes to our working conditions.
A recent NBC News poll found that 70 percent of US voters don’t want Joe Biden to recontest the presidency next year. Sixty percent feel likewise about Donald Trump. Yet the two men are currently odds-on to face each other in a 2024 re-run of the 2020 presidential election.
Allyship presents itself as a way that people can show support for the rights of an oppressed group that they themselves are not a part of without “taking the space” of those who are oppressed. Marxists, conversely, argue that solidarity is the key way we can win reforms for, and ultimately liberate, the oppressed. Allyship and solidarity might sound like much the same thing, but there are important differences in these strategies for social change.