The Re-warming Alliance Relation Between The United States And The Philippines

The Philippines was once the American colony, also established alliance with the United States after independence, in such aspects as politics, economy, culture even values are under great influence of the United States. After World War Ⅱ, the US-Philippines alliance relationship had changed from hot to cold and then re-warming in different historical period, in the process of change, the United States has played a dominant role, and the relationship between the two countries changes with the adjustment of the U.S. Asia-Pacific strategy. Along with America puts forward and continuously pushes ahead its "Return to the Asia-Pacific" strategy, the United States strengthened ties with its Asian allies, and the US-Philippines relations began to re-warm. The America added its economic and military aid to the Philippines, and actively intervened the China-Philippines South China Sea dispute, and supported the Philippines by various means. On the other hand, the Philippines took full advantage of the opportunity of America’s adjustment of its Asia-Pacific strategy, continually provoked China in the South China Sea issue, and finally led to the China-Philippines Huangyan Island confrontation incident in April2012.This paper reviewed the change process of the US-Philippine relations after World War Ⅱ, and focused on the development status of the US-Philippines relations in recent years, emphatically analyzed the causes, characteristics of the re-warming relation, and its impact on China. The United States and the Philippines are inextricably linked; America’s influence has penetrated into every corner and level of the Philippines society; The Philippines dependents on America and the United States also need the Philippines as its strategic foothold in Asia-Pacific, the alliance relations between the two countries will exist for a long time, and in general, the re-warming relations is a potential threat to China. However, on the other hand, the alliance relations between the United States and the Philippines is asymmetric, the overall strength of the two countries have a huge gap, and considering from the perspective of national interests, the common interests of the two countries is narrow, especially for the United States, the benefits from the alliance is limited. As can be seen from the Huangyan Island incident, the Philippines’foreign policy was influenced and even dominated by the United States, but the U.S. won’t risk armed conflict with China for the Philippines. Finally, this paper analyzed the re-warming relations’impacts on China, and put forward some suggestions to China’s response policy.