MANILA — The United States, Japan, and the Philippines have wrapped up a five-day trilateral maritime exercise in the South China Sea, aimed at enhancing trilateral military coordination and regional security. The joint operations, which ran from July 21 to July 25, 2026, deployed a combination of naval warships, coast guard vessels, fighter jets, and surveillance aircraft.
The military drills coincided with a fresh surge in maritime confrontations. The Philippine Coast Guard reported that Chinese coast guard ships deployed water cannons twice against Philippine government vessels near the disputed Scarborough Shoal during the exercise period. In response, Beijing defended its maritime enforcement actions as legal, asserting that Philippine ships had encroached upon Chinese territorial waters.
The trilateral maneuvers underscore the expanding defense alignment between Washington, Tokyo, and Manila as they seek to counter China’s broad territorial claims across the critical waterway.
