Filipinos who appease China have either lost their nerve over China’s beating of the war drums, or they’re now China’s useful idiots, hoodwinked into backing Beijing’s insidious attempts to prevent the Philippines from seeking international alliances to help assert the country’s sovereignty in the West Philippine Sea (WPS).

More likely, it’s the latter.

In fact, innocently promoting Chinese strategic interests should be the context of Senator Imee Marcos’ reservations about portions of her brother’s Executive Order (EO) 52, which created the National Maritime Center.

At first glance, Ms. Marcos’ warning about a provision of EO 52 supposedly inviting foreign interference does sound legitimate.

However, on scrutiny, her warning reveals less about foreign interference than China’s blocking the government’s alliances with like-minded countries to counter China’s increased aggression, especially its “gray zone” tactics.

This can be readily seen in that Ms. Marcos’ warnings were significantly made before next week’s first-ever trilateral summit involving the Philippines, Japan, and the United States.

High on the agenda of the 11 April Washington summit among US President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is China’s “gray zone” tactics, says a news report. 

As of now, there have been no details on how this new regional “security triangle” will operate or how the three partners “will deepen strategic, military, and economic coordination to better understand and prepare for the roles each might play in a crisis.”

Geostrategic analysts, though, predict the new trilateral group — which doesn’t yet have a name or acronym — could be more substantial than the Quad grouping of the US, Japan, India, and Australia or the AUKUS partnership of Australia, the UK, and the US.

This is so since Quad and AUKUS have yet to resolve pending security and logistical issues.

An exclusive news report last week, however, said the new security grouping has substance and, in fact, has already made an impact in the region.

In an exclusive report, the US news outfit Politico — quoting an unnamed US official and a foreign diplomat familiar with the summit’s planning — said the three countries will launch joint naval patrols in the South China Sea later this year.

It is not clear how soon the US-Japan-Philippines joint naval maneuvers will start, but Japan’s Asahi Shimbun reports that the patrols will be held “at the earliest” possible date.

The patrols may start sooner than expected, however. The militaries of the Philippines, Japan, and the US have long laid the groundwork for maritime patrols.

Strategic analysts also gathered and extensively discussed naval maneuvers and their implications as early as September last year, maritime expert Gregory B. Poling said in a February brief for the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

However, while the US and the Philippines have been conducting regular joint patrols, this will be the first time Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force will participate.

Japanese news outfit Nikkei Asia said Japan’s involvement in the planned patrols “reflects the Kishida government’s move to make Tokyo a bigger player in regional security alongside the US.”

Japan’s Asahi Shimbun quoted unnamed Japanese government sources as saying the planned joint patrols are “in response to China’s growing naval presence in the region.”

Similarly, Politico reports the joint patrols would be “a show of force designed to show Beijing its belligerence won’t be tolerated.”

China quickly saw the crucial strategic importance of the summit and the planned naval patrols.

Without skipping a beat, Beijing quickly aired angry responses to the planned joint patrols.

China’s state-backed Global Times lambasted the joint patrols as the “latest case of the US intention to deplete its allies and weaken China” as Washington “recruits Japan” to further destabilize the region and threaten China’s surrounding security.

In the face of these latest developments, therefore, whatever is said by supposedly innocent China-appeasing Filipinos must now take into account the trilateral summit’s strategic implications.