US munition hub plan for Philippines' Subic Bay sparks China retaliation fears
Philippines – is raising fears of strategic entrapment, local economic disruption and Chinese retaliation, despite tentative backing from Manila's defence chief.
Experts said while the move could help plug logistics gaps in the Indo-Pacific and deepen alliance coordination, it might also undermine the Philippines' policy of strategic ambiguity and reignite long-held fears about military dependence.
The plan emerged in a report released on June 24 by the US House Committee on Appropriations' defence subcommittee, which noted the lack of a munitions hub in the region and suggested setting up one at the former Subic Bay base.
'The committee is concerned with the lack of a forward-staged ammunition manufacturing facility in the Indo-Pacific,' the report said. 'Therefore, the committee directs the Department of Defence to assess … the feasibility of establishing a joint ammunition manufacturing and storage facility at United States Naval Base Subic Bay.'
Philippine Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jnr has welcomed the idea of a US arms hub in Subic Bay. Photo: AP
Although no formal proposal has been made, Philippine Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jnr welcomed the idea, citing potential economic and strategic benefits. 'Any production entity which would be of benefit to the Philippines, not only in terms of our resilience, but improving, giving employment and other technological transfers, that might be encouraged,' he said on Monday.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
South China Morning Post
4 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
China could become a high-income country this year, but can it stay one?
There seems to be a never-ending amount of scholarship and commentary on how China can escape the middle-income trap. It moved from low-income to lower-middle-income status in 2001, then to upper-middle-income status in 2010. However, China's next transition, to high-income status and joining the ranks of the club of developed countries, is much more difficult. While the jury is still out on exactly when it might happen, it is possible that 2025 is the year China becomes a high-income country . The data points to it passing that threshold this year, but the question remains whether it will address the structural challenges that could push it back down to middle-income status. It is important to define what economists mean by the middle-income trap . According to the China 2030 Report, jointly issued by the World Bank and China in 2013, only 13 out of 101 middle-income countries (classified by gross domestic product per capita) made the transition to high-income status between 1960 and 2008. The reason so few countries have been able to make the transition is the difficulty in achieving both the structural transformation and the technological and industrial upgrading needed. As economies and wages grow, the things these economies produce must advance as well. Countries that continue to make rather simple products while their wages continue to grow put themselves in an increasingly uncompetitive position in the global economy. This makes industrial and technological upgrading a major challenge that middle-income countries must overcome. If countries wish to continue developing and avoid the middle-income trap , the structure of the economy and the institutions that govern it must transform to meet the new reality created as economies and industries mature. When economies are poor and productive forces are yet to be fully cultivated, economic growth can solve most of their problems as developing countries still have the ability to grow rapidly.
South China Morning Post
4 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
Hong Kong slams Western countries over criticism of bounties for second straight day
The Hong Kong government has hit out at 'irresponsible remarks' by Western countries for the second straight day following its decision to pursue overseas-based activists for alleged national security violations related to a group called 'Hong Kong Parliament'. Advertisement Authorities said on Sunday that they strongly opposed and disapproved of 'smears with distorted facts' that had been communicated by officials and politicians from countries such as the US, Canada and Australia, as well as 'anti-China organisations'. 'Not only did such foreign government officials and politicians, as well as anti-China organisations, turn a blind eye to illegal acts of criminals, but also deliberately smeared and spread irresponsible remarks, in an attempt to mislead the public, about the measures and actions taken by the [Hong Kong government] in accordance with the law,' the government said. The statement followed a similar one issued a day earlier, which had slammed remarks made by UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, who had described the latest round of bounties as 'transnational repression'. Western governments and politicians have been voicing their criticism since the city's decision on Friday to place bounties on 15 activists and issue new arrest warrants for four more over their involvement in the 'Hong Kong Parliament', a group deemed subversive by authorities. Advertisement US Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned the latest round of warrants issued for activists, including those based in his country, saying Washington would not tolerate 'transnational repression on US soil'. In Canada, Minister of Foreign Affairs Anita Anand and Minister of Public Safety Gary Anandasangaree said in a joint statement that actions taken by Hong Kong 'threaten the sovereignty of Canada and security of the people in this country'.
South China Morning Post
6 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
WAIC Shanghai: Tencent, SenseTime launch new AI models to stir up industry rivalry
Tencent Holdings and SenseTime launched new artificial intelligence (AI) models at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai on Sunday as Chinese Big Tech companies stepped up their rivalry in the field. Shenzhen-based social media and gaming powerhouse Tencent unveiled its Hunyuan 3D World Model 1.0, an open-source AI model capable of generating detailed three-dimensional environments, according to a statement. SenseTime, an AI pioneer in China, launched SenseNova V6.5, a new generation of its proprietary AI model series. Tencent said its latest Hunyuan model could create interactive, 360-degree virtual 3D scenes using natural language prompts or image inputs, thus significantly simplifying the production process for virtual reality experiences and video games. Tencent said Hunyuan was the industry's first open-source 3D world-generation AI fully compatible with 'CG pipelines' – the standard workflow used for creating 3D graphics and animations in film production, gaming and visual effects. An image generated by Tencent's Hunyuan3D World Model 1.0, unveiled at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai on July 27, 2025. Photo: Handout Meanwhile, SenseTime claimed SenseNova V6.5 had outperformed some of its US peers such as Google's Gemini 2.5 Pro and Anthropic's Claude 4-Sonnet. Its unveiling marked the Hong Kong-listed firm's latest efforts to double down on multimodal AI models, chairman and CEO Xu Li said at the WAIC venue. The introduction followed months after it launched the previous version called SenseNova V6, a multimodal model released in April that had outperformed OpenAI's GPT-4o across several metrics.
