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Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures

Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

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China is worried about US–Philippines military exercises. It’s too close for comfort

Official Chinese statements have described the drills as destabilising, warning that they risk escalation and that the participating countries are 'playing with fire.'

Balikatan 2026, one of the largest iterations of the long-running United States–Philippines military exercise, is underway. Balikatan, meaning “shoulder to shoulder” in Tagalog, signals alliance cohesion, shared strategic outlooks, and a more integrated defence posture in the Indo-Pacific.

This year’s exercise stands out for both its scale and expanding participation. France and Canada have joined alongside Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. Equally significant is its geography: Drills now extend from northern Luzon, facing the Taiwan Strait and Luzon Strait, down to Palawan near the contested South China Sea.

China has not been explicitly named as a target, but its response leaves little ambiguity about how it interprets the exercise and the networked military participation. Official statements have described the drills as destabilising, warning that they risk escalation and that the participating countries are “playing with fire.” Chinese social media commentary has portrayed Balikatan as an unprecedented display of military coordination near China’s periphery and part of a broader pattern of strategic containment.

China’s framing of the exercise

Chinese discourse clusters around three main arguments. The first is geography. Commentators emphasise the location of the drills—northern Luzon, the Batanes Islands, and Palawan—as inherently strategic. In this framing, Batanes is located in the Luzon Strait, a critical maritime passage linking the South China Sea with the Western Pacific and the waters........

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