The Philippines and France signed a visiting forces agreement in March 2026, opening a new chapter in Manila’s widening network of defense partnerships as tensions across the South China Sea show no sign of easing. The pact allows military personnel from both countries to operate on each other’s territory for joint exercises, training, and humanitarian missions (Reuters). It represents France’s most significant security commitment in Southeast Asia in decades and signals Paris’s intent to maintain a strategic presence in the Indo-Pacific.
The agreement arrives against the backdrop of a volatile 2025 in which confrontation, militarization, and great-power rivalry reshaped the maritime dispute. Multiple claimant states accelerated infrastructure projects and naval patrols, while diplomatic channels failed to produce a binding code of conduct (East Asia Forum).
Philippines-France Pact
The visiting forces agreement gives French naval vessels and aircraft routine access to Philippine bases, including facilities near the South China Sea’s most contested waters. In return, Philippine forces will participate in exercises hosted by France in the Pacific territories of New Caledonia and French Polynesia (Reuters). Defense officials in Manila described the pact as a natural extension of a 2024 memorandum on defense cooperation that laid the groundwork for closer ties.
France maintains a permanent military presence in the Indo-Pacific, with roughly 7,000 troops stationed across its overseas territories. Paris has framed freedom of navigation in the South China Sea as a matter of international law and has periodically sent warships through the waterway since 2018 (East Asia Forum). The visiting forces agreement now anchors that posture to a formal bilateral framework with one of the dispute’s most directly affected claimants.
This agreement strengthens our capacity to uphold the rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific alongside like-minded partners.
China’s Expanding Militarization
Throughout 2025, China accelerated coast guard deployments across the Spratly and Paracel island chains, dispatching larger cutters equipped with water cannons and reinforced hulls to patrol disputed features (Reuters). Beijing also continued island-building at several outposts, adding radar arrays, communications infrastructure, and expanded port facilities capable of supporting longer rotations by naval auxiliaries.
Vietnam responded by strengthening its own infrastructure in the Spratlys, reinforcing airstrips and expanding docking facilities at several occupied reefs. Satellite imagery reviewed by analysts in late 2025 showed new concrete structures and defensive positions on at least three Vietnamese-held features (East Asia Forum). The parallel build-ups have narrowed the physical distance between rival outposts and raised the risk of accidental confrontation.
United States Role
Washington deepened its military engagement with the Philippines over the course of 2025, rotating additional assets through expanded access sites granted under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement. Joint patrols in the South China Sea increased in frequency, and the two allies conducted their largest-ever bilateral maritime exercise in November 2025 (Reuters).
The heightened American presence prompted reciprocal Chinese naval deployments, including guided-missile destroyer patrols near the Scarborough Shoal and increased submarine activity in the Luzon Strait. Beijing accused Washington of destabilizing the region by encouraging what it called confrontational behavior among smaller claimant states (East Asia Forum). American officials countered that their operations were consistent with international law and aimed at preserving open sea lanes.
ASEAN Stalemate
Negotiations between ASEAN and China on a binding code of conduct for the South China Sea remained stalled through early 2026. Working-level talks held in late 2025 produced no substantive progress, with disagreements persisting over the geographic scope of any future agreement and whether it should carry legal force (Reuters). Several Southeast Asian diplomats privately acknowledged that the process had lost momentum amid the broader deterioration in regional security.
The diplomatic impasse has pushed individual claimant states to pursue their own security arrangements rather than wait for a collective framework. The Philippines-France agreement is the latest in a string of bilateral defense pacts Manila has signed since 2023, joining similar accords with Japan, Australia, and Canada (East Asia Forum). Whether this expanding web of partnerships will deter further militarization or accelerate it remains one of the defining questions for South China Sea security in the months ahead.