The Philippines, United States, Japan and Australia will conduct more military patrols in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) after their first-ever joint maritime drills involving warships from the four nations in the resource-rich waterway on April 7, according to a senior US security official. “On the naval patrols, we just saw trilateral plus Australia, a new form of quadrilateral joint naval patrols last week, so you can expect to see more of that in the future,” US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told a White House press briefing on Wednesday, ahead of US President Joe Biden’s meetings this week with the Japanese and Philippine leaders. Sullivan also said Washington and its existing Australian and British partners in the AUKUS security pact—a trilateral security partnership for the Indo-Pacific region between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States—would explore possible Japanese involvement in Pillar II of the project, something the summit between Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida would address.

Corrales, N. (2024, April 11). Expect more joint patrols in South China Sea–US nat’l security adviser. Philippine Daily Inquirer, pp. A2, A3.