EU bluffing it will protect the Philippines from China
Not in the first hour, not on day one, not at all. Malacanang can host foreign dignitaries, sign joint declarations and pose for photo-ops, but when pressure escalates in the South China Sea, Brussels will remain where it likes to be: on the margins of force.
The reason is simple: the EU lacks means, mandate and will. Recent episodes confirm the reality. Trump pushed Europe into a 5% GDP outlay on American weapons, imposed humiliating tariffs and even instructed Europeans on managing a war at their own doorstep.
Against this backdrop, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas went to Manila proclaiming solidarity and affinity with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr with the familiar homily on values. Yet the contrast was glaring: Europe accepts subordination in its own theater, while preaching resolve in Asia.
The question thus arises: Could the actor Manila hopes will help to counter China in the West Philippine Sea ever be Brussels?
Kallas used the visit to posture as a China hawk, without any leverage. Headlines proclaimed a new era of European commitment to Philippine security, inflated by 'concern' over China's 'illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive' behavior. But adjectives are not strategy. Partnerships rest on capability and intent, and Europe offers neither.
If any message from the West carried weight lately, it came from France. President Emmanuel Macron, speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue, cut through the fog: Europe will not fight China.
'If the elephant in the room is the day China decides a big operation against a country, will you intervene day one? I would be very cautious today. Everybody would be very cautious today,' Macron said.
France, the EU's only nuclear power, its most globally deployed force and the only member state with Indo-Pacific territories, confirmed Europe's hesitation. The implication is terminal: if France won't act, Europe can't.
The evidence is not theoretical. The war in Ukraine remains Europe's test. While Kyiv still pleads for weapons and air cover, Brussels debates gas payments and packages of sanctions to the same regime shelling Ukrainian cities. After 1,300 days of war, Europe has sent billions but not a single combat brigade in a war that its leaders frame as 'existential.'
Macron made the linkage explicit: 'If both the USA and the Europeans are unable to fix the Ukrainian situation, I think the credibility of both the US and the Europeans to pretend to fix any crisis in this [Southeast Asian] region will be very low.'
Translation: Europe's relevance in Asia is bound to its performance in Europe. And now that performance is collapsing under reluctance, fragmentation, risk aversion and submission to Washington.
Another way to put it: What has the Philippines contributed to Ukraine? Nothing. And rightly so. Kyiv is not Manila's fight, just as Palawan won't be Brussels's. Nations act where their interests are threatened and their capabilities count.
However, the limits run deeper than military logistics. The EU is not a state. It is a bloc of 27 governments pursuing conflicting China strategies while leaders pretend to speak as one. France defends its own interests. Germany prioritizes export flows to Beijing. Eastern Europe chases Chinese infrastructure deals. Spain seeks Chinese factories. The EU has no collective security, and strategic autonomy remains a slogan.
Amid these realities, what was Kallas really pursuing in the Philippines? Her tour through Southeast Asia, capped in Manila, was less about Philippine security than about self-projection—claiming global engagement without facing the only question that matters: would Europe ever fight in Asia? The answer had already come weeks earlier in Singapore, and it was no.
The greater danger, accordingly, is miscalculation. Manila could mistake symbolic support for protection—and in a military contingency, that would be catastrophic. The gap between words and power was visible from Kallas's first steps as the EU's top diplomat: 'In my first visit since taking up office, my message is clear: the European Union wants Ukraine to win this war.'
A war the EU refused to fight and cannot even negotiate to end became her stage for declarations. If Brussels cannot turn mantras into force there, how could it matter in the Philippines? The High Representative's role is not to set policy, still less to deliver victories, but to echo member-state consensus.
Yet some Philippine commentators have excitedly portrayed Kallas's show as proof of security cooperation, as if it somehow promised definitive defense against China—still the EU's major trading partner. And full disclosure: the EU does not even have a trade agreement with the Philippines.
Therefore, will it be values or trade? Interests or illusions of protecting 'like-minded allies?' Filipino aircrews over contested waters might not be comforted by Kallas's talk of 'democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.' They need combat integration, air cover and the certainty that escalation will be met with overwhelming force in nearby waters.
Europe offers none of that. Currently, when it sends vessels to the region, routes are announced in advance to avoid confrontation—presence without purpose. Political affinities don't intercept warships or deter coercion.
And the US no longer pretends these performances matter. In February 2025, Vice President J D Vance dismissed European irrelevance at the Munich Security Conference. Kallas answered with defiance, calling on Europe to lead the 'free world.'
Weeks later in Washington, Secretary of State Marco Rubio refused to meet her—the very reason she had flown in. And when Ukraine is discussed, EU leaders are not decision-makers but invitees at the White House, where they are lectured on how to negotiate a war they never managed.
For Manila, the ambiguity should be gone. The US, Japan and Australia remain their defense partners. Brussels is useful in trade, regulation and multilateral forums. But expecting military deterrence from Europe versus China is pure fantasy.
Philippine policymakers should stop imagining battalions where there are only bureaucrats. At best, Brussels can fund radar stations or back maritime resolutions; but once combat begins, if it ever does, it will be reduced to its specialty—offering 'unwavering support' from afar.
So beware when the pageantry resumes. The inaugural Philippines–EU Security Dialogue in late 2025 will spark the usual theatrical outrage from Beijing—just enough for some to feel important. But no one in Zhongnanhai will lose any sleep over a summit without soldiers.
Because the South China Sea is not governed by grandiloquent declarations and gatherings. It is shaped by resolve, escalation thresholds and the capacity to act without asking. If and when the next crisis comes, Manila will already know Europe can be counted on for rhetoric but will ultimately do nothing.
Sebastian Contin Trillo-Figueroa is a Hong Kong-based geopolitics strategist with a focus on Europe-Asia relations.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
RTHK
3 hours ago
- RTHK
Ukrainian held over 2022 Nord Stream pipeline blasts
Ukrainian held over 2022 Nord Stream pipeline blasts A satellite image shows gas from the Nord Stream pipeline bubbling up in the water following the September 2022 explosions. File photo: Roscosmos via Reuters A Ukrainian man has been arrested in Italy on suspicion of coordinating the 2022 attacks on the Nord Stream gas pipelines, German prosecutors said on Thursday, marking a breakthrough in an episode that sharpened tensions between Russia and the West. Seen by both Moscow and the West as an act of sabotage, the explosions severely damaged three pipelines carrying gas from Russia to Europe, prompting a major escalation in the Ukraine conflict and squeezing energy supplies on the continent. No one has ever taken responsibility for the blasts. The arrest comes just as Kyiv is engaged in fraught diplomatic discussions with the United States over how to end the war in Ukraine without giving away major concessions and swathes of its own territory to Russia. "The bombing of the pipelines must be investigated, including through criminal prosecution. Therefore, it is good that we are making progress in this regard," said German Justice Minister Stefanie Hubig in a statement. An official in the Ukrainian president's office said he could not comment as it was not clear who had been arrested. The official reiterated Ukraine's denial of any role in the blasts. The suspect, identified only as Serhii K. under German privacy laws, was part of a group of people who planted devices on the pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea, a statement from the prosecutor's office said. He and his accomplices had set off from Rostock on Germany's northeastern coast in a sailing yacht to carry out the attack, it said. The vessel had been rented from a German company with the help of forged identity documents via middlemen, it added. Authorities acted on a European arrest warrant for the suspect, who faces charges of collusion to cause an explosion, anti-constitutional sabotage and destruction of important structures. Carabinieri officers arrested him overnight in the province of Rimini on Italy's Adriatic coast, the German prosecutors' statement said. The Italian Carabinieri confirmed the arrest and said the suspect was aged 49 but gave no further details. In September 2022, one of the two lines of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline was damaged by mysterious blasts, along with both lines of Nord Stream 1 that carried Russian gas to Europe. Both the US and Ukraine have denied having anything to do with the attacks, as has Russia. (Reuters)
AllAfrica
3 hours ago
- AllAfrica
EU bluffing it will protect the Philippines from China
Europe will not defend the Philippines. Not in the first hour, not on day one, not at all. Malacanang can host foreign dignitaries, sign joint declarations and pose for photo-ops, but when pressure escalates in the South China Sea, Brussels will remain where it likes to be: on the margins of force. The reason is simple: the EU lacks means, mandate and will. Recent episodes confirm the reality. Trump pushed Europe into a 5% GDP outlay on American weapons, imposed humiliating tariffs and even instructed Europeans on managing a war at their own doorstep. Against this backdrop, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas went to Manila proclaiming solidarity and affinity with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr with the familiar homily on values. Yet the contrast was glaring: Europe accepts subordination in its own theater, while preaching resolve in Asia. The question thus arises: Could the actor Manila hopes will help to counter China in the West Philippine Sea ever be Brussels? Kallas used the visit to posture as a China hawk, without any leverage. Headlines proclaimed a new era of European commitment to Philippine security, inflated by 'concern' over China's 'illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive' behavior. But adjectives are not strategy. Partnerships rest on capability and intent, and Europe offers neither. If any message from the West carried weight lately, it came from France. President Emmanuel Macron, speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue, cut through the fog: Europe will not fight China. 'If the elephant in the room is the day China decides a big operation against a country, will you intervene day one? I would be very cautious today. Everybody would be very cautious today,' Macron said. France, the EU's only nuclear power, its most globally deployed force and the only member state with Indo-Pacific territories, confirmed Europe's hesitation. The implication is terminal: if France won't act, Europe can't. The evidence is not theoretical. The war in Ukraine remains Europe's test. While Kyiv still pleads for weapons and air cover, Brussels debates gas payments and packages of sanctions to the same regime shelling Ukrainian cities. After 1,300 days of war, Europe has sent billions but not a single combat brigade in a war that its leaders frame as 'existential.' Macron made the linkage explicit: 'If both the USA and the Europeans are unable to fix the Ukrainian situation, I think the credibility of both the US and the Europeans to pretend to fix any crisis in this [Southeast Asian] region will be very low.' Translation: Europe's relevance in Asia is bound to its performance in Europe. And now that performance is collapsing under reluctance, fragmentation, risk aversion and submission to Washington. Another way to put it: What has the Philippines contributed to Ukraine? Nothing. And rightly so. Kyiv is not Manila's fight, just as Palawan won't be Brussels's. Nations act where their interests are threatened and their capabilities count. However, the limits run deeper than military logistics. The EU is not a state. It is a bloc of 27 governments pursuing conflicting China strategies while leaders pretend to speak as one. France defends its own interests. Germany prioritizes export flows to Beijing. Eastern Europe chases Chinese infrastructure deals. Spain seeks Chinese factories. The EU has no collective security, and strategic autonomy remains a slogan. Amid these realities, what was Kallas really pursuing in the Philippines? Her tour through Southeast Asia, capped in Manila, was less about Philippine security than about self-projection—claiming global engagement without facing the only question that matters: would Europe ever fight in Asia? The answer had already come weeks earlier in Singapore, and it was no. The greater danger, accordingly, is miscalculation. Manila could mistake symbolic support for protection—and in a military contingency, that would be catastrophic. The gap between words and power was visible from Kallas's first steps as the EU's top diplomat: 'In my first visit since taking up office, my message is clear: the European Union wants Ukraine to win this war.' A war the EU refused to fight and cannot even negotiate to end became her stage for declarations. If Brussels cannot turn mantras into force there, how could it matter in the Philippines? The High Representative's role is not to set policy, still less to deliver victories, but to echo member-state consensus. Yet some Philippine commentators have excitedly portrayed Kallas's show as proof of security cooperation, as if it somehow promised definitive defense against China—still the EU's major trading partner. And full disclosure: the EU does not even have a trade agreement with the Philippines. Therefore, will it be values or trade? Interests or illusions of protecting 'like-minded allies?' Filipino aircrews over contested waters might not be comforted by Kallas's talk of 'democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.' They need combat integration, air cover and the certainty that escalation will be met with overwhelming force in nearby waters. Europe offers none of that. Currently, when it sends vessels to the region, routes are announced in advance to avoid confrontation—presence without purpose. Political affinities don't intercept warships or deter coercion. And the US no longer pretends these performances matter. In February 2025, Vice President J D Vance dismissed European irrelevance at the Munich Security Conference. Kallas answered with defiance, calling on Europe to lead the 'free world.' Weeks later in Washington, Secretary of State Marco Rubio refused to meet her—the very reason she had flown in. And when Ukraine is discussed, EU leaders are not decision-makers but invitees at the White House, where they are lectured on how to negotiate a war they never managed. For Manila, the ambiguity should be gone. The US, Japan and Australia remain their defense partners. Brussels is useful in trade, regulation and multilateral forums. But expecting military deterrence from Europe versus China is pure fantasy. Philippine policymakers should stop imagining battalions where there are only bureaucrats. At best, Brussels can fund radar stations or back maritime resolutions; but once combat begins, if it ever does, it will be reduced to its specialty—offering 'unwavering support' from afar. So beware when the pageantry resumes. The inaugural Philippines–EU Security Dialogue in late 2025 will spark the usual theatrical outrage from Beijing—just enough for some to feel important. But no one in Zhongnanhai will lose any sleep over a summit without soldiers. Because the South China Sea is not governed by grandiloquent declarations and gatherings. It is shaped by resolve, escalation thresholds and the capacity to act without asking. If and when the next crisis comes, Manila will already know Europe can be counted on for rhetoric but will ultimately do nothing. Sebastian Contin Trillo-Figueroa is a Hong Kong-based geopolitics strategist with a focus on Europe-Asia relations.
AllAfrica
11 hours ago
- AllAfrica
Toward a NATO-like security guarantee for Ukraine
Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, had good cause to be optimistic following his recent White House meetings with Donald Trump and the leaders of the European 'coalition of the willing.' While a concrete peace plan has yet to emerge, Trump appears to have come around to the European position that security guarantees will be vital if any peace deal is to stick. This is real progress. But what shape would security guarantees take in the case of Ukraine, and will they be enough to deter the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, from breaking the peace at some future date? Talk of security guarantees is nothing new. Zelensky and his European allies have been stressing their importance for much of the conflict. But what does appear significant is the way in which the latest proposals have been framed. It has been suggested that Ukraine should be offered security guarantees that resemble what Italy's prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, called an 'Article 5 model.' This is a reference to the defence provision of NATO's founding treaty, which specifies that an attack on one member is an attack on them all and requires a collective response. NATO's Article 5 is the gold standard of security guarantees. The wording is open to interpretation, but no one doubts that the principle of collective defence it embodies is the core purpose of the 32 nations that make up the alliance. Article 5 is backed by a credible force that outclasses Russian military might. Certainly, questions hang over Article 5's reliability. The provision has only ever been activated once – following the 9/11 attacks on the United States in 2001. But the unusual circumstances of that single invocation do not render the provision any less valuable. The fact that European allies came to America's assistance (rather than the US coming to the aid of Europe) means Article 5 is a symbolic resource in transatlantic relations, which NATO's European members can wield to remind the US president of his country's commitment. This is important. Trump has periodically suggested the US would not be prepared to defend perceived alliance 'free-riders'. But the agreement at NATO's Hague summit in June to raise defence spending among the allies went a long way to head off a transatlantic rupture by allaying Trump's fears on that score. Worries that the American military presence in Europe would be summarily withdrawn have so far proved unfounded. The US president now praises NATO as being engaged with America in what the White House has called a 'new era of shared responsibility.' The true effect of Article 5 lies in the wars that have not occurred rather than those that have. Under Putin, Russia has attacked both Georgia and Ukraine. It has not invaded a NATO ally. This is why Ukraine has always been so keen to become a member of NATO, something that has been accepted in principle by most members of the alliance for some years. But since the invasion of Ukraine, that route to an Article 5 security guarantee has been expressly ruled out by the Trump administration, as well as by NATO itself. Instead, the alliance's secretary general, Mark Rutte, has referred to 'Article 5-type of security guarantees for Ukraine.' What has still to be publicly discussed is precisely what this might entail. Some of the parameters are, however, becoming clear. Trump suggested that he wants Europeans to be 'the first line of defense', with the US providing intelligence, weapons (paid for by Europe) and air support of some kind. He was quite clear that there would be no US 'boots on the ground.' Ukraine's European allies are now mulling over what their role as guarantors of security for a peace deal might look like. It has been reported that the head of the UK's armed forces, Tony Radakin, will tell a meeting of military commanders at the Pentagon that the UK is prepared to send troops to Ukraine – not as a frontline fighting force, but to provide security at ports and air bases. How many members of the coalition of the willing are prepared to do the same remains uncertain. What went unmentioned at the White House meeting was the significant set of security and defense commitments Ukraine already enjoys with the NATO allies. Since the G7 Joint Declaration of Support for Ukraine of July 2023, Ukraine has signed bilateral security and defence agreements with 27 of NATO's 32 members. Typically, these provide for consultation within 24 hours if Ukraine is attacked, in order (as Ukraine's agreements with the UK and France both put it) 'to determine measures needed to counter or deter the aggression.' There are also common provisions for military capacity building, recognition of Ukraine's territorial integrity and post-war reconstruction. Taken in the round, these agreements thus already provide the political basis for a comprehensive and effective set of security guarantees. Two more things are needed. First, the bilateral US-Ukraine security agreement of June 2024, signed under the previous US president, Joe Biden, needs to be reaffirmed by the Trump administration. Second, the Europeans need to convert their latticework of agreements with Ukraine into an effective security and defense mechanism. This can be done as the French president, Emmanuel Macron, has suggested, by continuing to arm the Ukrainian military. But if the Article 5 parallel means anything, it will require – as Rose Gottemoeller, a former NATO deputy director general, pointed out on the BBC – an effective deterrent effect. And that means US participation. With minimal involvement by the US, the question is whether the Franco-British-led 'coalition of the willing' is up to the task – and whether there is the collective political will to organise and deploy a deterrent force in the face of Russian objections. These are the debates playing out in Europe and across the Atlantic – and which become daily more urgent, as Russia's advance in eastern Ukraine continues to gather momentum. Mark Webber is professor of international politics, University of Birmingham This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
