Research On The U.S.-Philippines Bilateral Security Cooperation Mechanism Since Obama Took Office

Obama,the first Pacific president, povit the foreign focus on the Asia-Pacific region as soon as he took office in 2009, which leads the U.S.-Philippines Bilateral Security Cooperation Mechanism changed observably, mainly in the following three aspects:First, the U.S.-Philippines Traditional Bilateral Security Mechanism has strengthened further; Second, the U.S.-Philippines Non-Traditional Bilateral Security Mechanism has much improved; Third, the overall efficiency of the U.S.-Philippines Security Cooperation Mechanism has enhanced significantly. This paper will analyze the changing characteristics and influence factors in the mechanism, discuss the changing meanings and the development direction after Obama leaves his post, which all base on the above changing.The are four parts in the paper.Based on predecessors’ research achievements, the first part analysis the U.S.-Philippines Security Cooperation Mechanism before Obama took office, explain the research meaning and determine the basic framework of the paper. The second part mainly focus on the mechanism change since Obama took up his post. After Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT),Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) and Mutual Logistics Support Agreement (MLSA), there are three ways that Obama consolidates two countries’ security cooperation mechanism:Manila Declaration,U.S.-Philippines Bilateral Strategic Dialogue (BSD),and Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA). Manila Declaration evaluates highly and enhances the US-Philippine alliance partner relationship; the BSD increases US military presence in the Philippines; the EDCA improves the U.S.-Philippines military concerted capability. In addition to that, these two countries have more bilateral cooperation in non-traditional security areas like maritime security, joint counter-terrorism and disaster relief. The third part analyzes the characteristics and influencing factors of the US-Philippine bilateral security cooperation mechanism since the Obama’s administration. This mechanism has three main characteristics. First, the form and content are diversified; Second, it’s targeted.2014 is the cut-off point of time. Before it, the mechanism focus on Philippines’ terrorism and China-Philippines island sovereignty dispute, and then it turns to the South China Sea territorial sovereignty dispute and the EDCA:Third is integration, meaning that U.S. tries to integrate together its allies in the Asia-Pacific by these mechanism to deal with the "non-friendly force", whose outstanding performance is the relationship between the Philippines and Japan’s rapid warming. Judging from the factors, this paper mainly analyze from three aspects that the Philippines, the United States and the overall background, including the Philippines’ emotion depending on the United States deeply, the United States implementing the Asia-Pacific Rebalance Strategy and the Philippines’ important position in U.S. global strategic. The forth part is the conclusion that summarizing the significance of the mechanism, elaborating the influences to China’s safety in Southeast and discussing the future direction of the mechanism in post-Obama period.This paper not only researches the U.S.-Philippines Bilateral Security Cooperation Mechanism since Obama being the President, but also analyses the security situation surrounding the Southeast of China through two methods:the Text Interpretation Method and the Historical Induction Method. Since the 18th National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China(NPC), China has formulated the diplomacy panorama:The power is the key, nearby is the primary, the developing countries are the foundation. For China, dealing with the U.S.-Philippines Bilateral Security Cooperation Mechanism has different important meanings, including great-power diplomacy and neighboring diplomacy. Therefore, the paper has strong practical guidance value because of the study of the U.S.-Philippines Bilateral Security Cooperation Mechanism.