MANILA: American and Filipino security officials have agreed to keep a US mid-range missile system in the northern Philippines indefinitely to boost deterrance despite China’s expressions of alarm, two Philippine officials said Wednesday.
The US Army transported the Typhon missile system, a land-based weapon that can fire the Standard Missile-6 and the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile, to the northern Philippines as part of combat exercises in April with Philippine troops and to test its deployability aboard an Air Force aircraft.
The launcher can fire cruise missiles up to 1,800 kilometers (1,118 miles), which places China within its target range, one of the two officials said. Officials are considering keeping the missile system in the northern Philippines up to April next year, when US and Philippine forces are scheduled to hold their annual Balikatan — Tagalog for “shoulder-to-shoulder” — large-scale combat exercises, he said.
The two officials spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the sensitive US missile deployment publicly. There was no immediate immediate comment from US officials.
Chinese diplomats have repeatedly conveyed their alarm to the Philippine government, warning that the deployment of the missile system could destabilize the region.
A Philippine army spokesperson said was earlier the system was scheduled to be removed from the country by the end of this month. Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. refused to confirm or deny the extension.
But Teodoro rejected China’s demands as interference in the Philippines internal affairs, speaking to reporters Tuesday on the sidelines of an Asian defense industry exhibition in Manila.
“China is saying that they are alarmed but that is interference into our internal affairs. They are using reverse psychology in order to deter us from building up our defensive capabilities,” Teodoro said.
“Before they start talking, why don’t they lead by example? Destroy their nuclear arsenal, remove all their ballistic missile capabilities, get out of the West Philippines Sea and get out of Mischief Reef,” Teodoro said. “I mean, don’t throw stones when you live in a glass house.”
Teodoro used the Philippine name for the disputed South China Sea and for a contested reef off the western Philippines that Chinese forces seized in 1995 and is now one of seven missile-protected island bases China maintains in the disputed waters.
Last month, Philippine Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo said his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi expressed China’s “very dramatic” concern over the US mid-range missile deployment to the Philippines during their recent talks in Laos on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations meetings with Asian and Western countries.
Manalo said Wang warned the presence of the US missile system could be “destabilizing,” but he said that he disagreed. “They’re not destabilizing” and the missile system was only in the Philippines temporarily, Manalo said he told Wang.
Although the missile system was transported to the Philippines for joint combat exercises in April, it was not fired during the joint drills by the longtime treaty allies, according to Philippine and US military officials.
China has strongly opposed increased US military deployments to the region, including to the Philippines, saying they could endanger regional stability and peace.
The US and the Philippines have repeatedly condemned China’s increasingly assertive actions to fortify its territorial claims in the South China Sea, where hostilities have flared since last year with repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine coast guard forces and accompanying vessels.
Aside from China and the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also have overlapping claims in the busy waterway, a key global and security route which is also believed to be sitting atop vast undersea deposits of gas and oil.

KYIV, Ukraine: The victory plan that President Volodymyr Zelensky will present to the White House this week asks the Biden administration to do something it has not achieved in the two and a half years since Russia invaded Ukraine: act quickly to support Kyiv’s campaign.
While Western dawdling has amplified Ukraine’s losses, some Ukrainian officials, diplomats and analysts fear Kyiv’s aim to have the plan implemented before a new US president takes office in January may be out of reach.
US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield, reportedly briefed on the plan, said it “can work” but many privately question how.
The specifics of Zelensky’s blueprint have been kept under wraps until it can be formally presented to President Joe Biden, but contours of the plan have emerged, including the need for fast action on decisions Western allies have been mulling since the full-scale invasion began in 2022.
It includes the security guarantee of NATO membership, according to Zelensky’s chief of staff Andrii Yermak — a principal demand of Kyiv and Moscow’s key point of contention. Western allies, including the US, have been skeptical about this option.
Zelensky has said he will also seek permission to use long-range weapons to strike deep inside Russian territory, another red line for some of Ukraine’s supporters.
“Partners often say, ‘We will be with Ukraine until its victory.’ Now we clearly show how Ukraine can win and what is needed for this. Very specific things,” Zelensky told reporters ahead of the trip. “Let’s do all this today, while all the officials who want victory for Ukraine are still in official positions.”
Meanwhile, outnumbered Ukrainian forces face grinding battles against one of the world’s most powerful armies in the east. As Zelensky pitches his plan to Biden on Thursday, Ukrainian servicemen will be grappling to hold defensive lines in the key logistics point of Vuhledar in the Donetsk region. For some of them, it is essential that Biden buys into Zelensky’s plan.
“I hope that allies will provide us with what we need,” said Kyanin, a soldier fighting in the Donetsk region. “Not 10 or 31 tanks, but a thousand tanks, thousands of weapons and ammunition.”
Kyiv sets the terms
The victory plan is Kyiv’s response to rising pressure from Western allies and war-weary Ukrainians to negotiate a ceasefire. A deal with Russia would almost certainly be unfavorable for Ukraine, which has lost a fifth of its territory and tens of thousands of lives in the conflict.
Unless, Kyiv calculates, its western partners act quickly. Ukraine’s allies have routinely mulled over requests for weapons and capabilities, granting them often after their strategic value is diminished. Under the plan, from October to December, they must dramatically strengthen Kyiv’s hand.
The plan comprises military, political, diplomatic and economic elements.
Aside from the demand for NATO membership, it seeks to bolster Ukraine’s defenses, including air defense capabilities, enough to force Moscow to negotiate.
A request to ramp up sanctions to weaken Russia’s economy and defense industry is also expected.
Zelensky has said without elaborating that Kyiv’s military incursion into Kursk, in Russia, is part of the victory plan. That offensive, which embarrassed President Vladimir Putin as the Kremlin scrambled to counterattack, has not yielded any strategic gains. But it has shown the Russian public and doubtful Western allies that Russian is not invincible and Kyiv still has offensive capabilities despite being battered on the eastern front.
The cost of inaction
Zelensky has described his proposal as “a bridge to the Peace Summit” that he has proposed for November but that Russia says it will not attend. No international players capable of swaying Moscow agreed to his earlier 10-point peace plan, which calls for the full withdrawal of Russian forces.
Ukrainian presidential advisers and lawmakers have told The Associated Press that Kyiv will only agree to a ceasefire with Russia if Putin’s ability to invade the country again is crippled. Any other arrangement would not benefit Ukraine’s future or honor the sacrifices of its people.
Ukrainian officials have rejected competing proposals from China and Brazil, believing they would merely pause the war and give Moscow time to consolidate its battered army and defense industry.
“It will lead to a freezing of the conflict, nothing more: Occupied territories are considered occupied. Sanctions against Russia remain. The intensity of war drops significantly but it continues,” said one presidential adviser, who requested anonymity to speak freely.
He predicted that Moscow would recalibrate and attack again, likely from Mykolaiv and Odesa in the south, “within two, three, four years, or maybe even earlier, depending on the state of Russia. That’s the scenario.”
Russia’s conditions for ending the war are spelled out in a 17-page draft agreement penned in April 2022.
The time element
Prolonging the status quo will only play into Russia’s hands in the long-term, analysts said.
“Ukraine will lose more than 1,000 square kilometers (600 miles) by the end of the year,” if current conditions continue, said Oleksandr Kovalenko, a military analyst for Information Resistance, a Kyiv-based think tank. “We need to understand that if (allies) don’t defend Ukraine, it will make this war last for many more years, and finally, make it possible for us to lose the war,” he said.
Time will also allow Russian forces to build up its weapons industry, as it did at a frightening pace in the last year, said Kovalenko.
“We lack every kind of weapon, and Russia produces their weapons 24 hours a day,” Kovalenko said.
Russia has updated its aerial glide bombs, for which Ukraine has no effective countermeasure. They now weigh 3,000 pounds, which is six times bigger than when they were first used in the battle for Bakhmut in 2022, he said.
Soldiers in eastern Ukraine and analysts said long-range Western weapons would be the most effective countermeasure against glide bombs, which have been deployed along the frontline, including in Vuhledar. The mining town’s fall would compromise supply lines feeding the southern front and strike a devastating blow to Ukrainian morale.
In his final address to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, Biden urged Ukraine’s backers to stand firm.
“We cannot grow weary,” he said. “We cannot look away.”