We’d all be better off acquainting ourselves with the security and diplomatic buzzword “minilateral,” which the recently concluded Philippine-Japan-United States trilateral summit generated.

For starters, the Marcos government’s decisive embrace of the “minilateral” concept of regional cooperation effectively transforms the country’s security architecture.

Surprisingly, this transformation isn’t US-centric, a development that should douse fears raised in many quarters that the government is supposedly still hell-bent on a US-centric security architecture.

In fact, the country’s participation in the trilateral summit pointedly signals that it has entered the “minilateral” era, where seeking a diversified and flexible alliance network with other countries besides the US is a common characteristic.

The country’s “minilateral” turn was inevitable. “The Indo-Pacific is being transformed by a resurgence of so-called ‘minilateral’ forms of regional cooperation,” as one recent news report noted. 

 If before, “state-to-state cooperation was once generally either bilateral or multilateral, multilateral arrangements typically involving small groups of three to six members have increasingly come to occupy an in-between layer in the region’s security architecture.”

The Washington trilateral summit, therefore, was the official instituting of “minilateralism,” wherein the leaders of the three countries noticeably sought “to quickly institutionalize a new, coordinated approach to regional security” and economic cooperation for the years to come. 

Of the three countries at the summit, influential Japan is the one deeply engaged in the highly flexible “minilateral” endeavor. Philippine ally Australia is also another notable “minilateral” proponent.

In recent years, however, the Americans themselves also seem to have actively embraced “minilateralism.”

“One of the key components of the Biden administration’s approach to the Indo-Pacific has been the stitching together of bilateral alliances and partnerships into ‘minilateral’ arrangements that have the potential to achieve results that large-scale, multilateral cooperation in the region cannot,” remarked one American analyst.

Subsequently, the Americans’ embrace of “minilateralism” means they have found its ancient Cold War “hub and spokes” security strategy unwise, even unworkable, in the Indo-Pacific.

“Hub and spokes” is a US-led system of security or “collective defense” arrangements like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization that arose after the 1951 San Francisco Peace Conference. It means the US is the hub, and its various Asian allies are the spokes, as in a bicycle wheel.

Interestingly, some strategic analysts claim China uses the same outmoded “hub and spokes” playbook in its expansionist agenda, particularly in its “Belt and Road” initiative.

At any rate, a large military alliance like NATO “would be unthinkable” in the Indo-Pacific, says an analyst.

Which is why Washington is opting for “minilateral” relationships with specific objectives which can be expanded, if necessary, beyond a specific security issue facing a country like what we now have with China’s rampant harassment in the WPS.

At the same time, “minilateralism” is apparently helping assuage many anxious leaders of Indo-Pacific nations wary about a new Cold War between Washington and Beijing — of getting caught in the middle of a fight between two superpowers.

Apparently also, says an analyst, “minilateralism” generously allows the Marcos government prodigious flexibility in forging new security relationships with other countries. 

“The Marcos administration correctly recognizes that it cannot rely solely on its two closest friends to deal with the challenges of the next decade,” says one analyst.  

This means “minilateralism” now quickly allows the government to forge security networks with its closest geographic neighbors, Vietnam, Taiwan, Indonesia and Malaysia, as well as regional and global powers like Australia, India, and the European Union.

Forming such new relationship networks is important for many reasons but is particularly important in the face of China’s threat to our sovereignty.

“A core tenet of Beijing’s incrementalist approach to maritime expansionism has been to isolate smaller nations and insist on bilateral resolutions,” points out a strategic analyst.

“Minilateral” arrangements, as such, deter giant China from bullying us into resolving our issues with her one-on-one, forcing reputation-conscious China to deal with the fact that it’s now one-against-all.