Philippines Teams Up With East Timor Against China in South China Sea?
Is Southeast Asia witnessing the quiet birth of a new maritime alliance, one that could subtly redraw the strategic lines of the South China Sea? On October 26, 2025, East Timor (Timor-Leste) was formally admitted as the 11th member of ASEAN, a milestone that not only fulfilled Dili’s decades-long aspiration but also shifted the diplomatic tides of the region. Almost immediately, Manila moved to court the Indo-Pacific’s youngest democracy, hinting at what some analysts are calling a “symbolic yet strategic partnership” a move that could challenge China’s dominance in contested waters. But the question looms large: Can two of the region’s smaller maritime nations really alter the balance of power in an arena long dominated by giants?
For the Philippines, under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the answer seems to lie in audacity and alignment. Since 2022, Marcos has recast Manila’s foreign policy, abandoning the hedging strategy of the Duterte years and replacing it with a bold “transparency and deterrence” doctrine. This policy exposes China’s aggressive actions through public diplomacy, sharper defense messaging, and increasingly, coalition-building among Southeast Asian states that share Manila’s anxieties. The budding partnership with East Timor fits squarely into this playbook. Though East Timor lacks naval might, its geostrategic position along vital sea lines of communication between the Arafura Sea and the South China Sea, and its newfound ASEAN voice, make it an invaluable diplomatic ally in a region where geography often determines power.
Recent weeks have amplified this urgency. China’s coast guard has continued to block Philippine resupply missions to the Second Thomas Shoal, while Beijing’s latest move, declaring Scarborough Shoal a “national marine park”, has been condemned in Manila as another step toward de facto annexation. Meanwhile, regional militaries are shifting into high gear: the 2025 Balikatan exercises introduced American long-range missile drills near the Luzon Strait, and Manila activated its first BrahMos missile battery in Zambales, a signal that its defensive red lines are hardening. Against this backdrop, East Timor’s overtures toward Manila are more than diplomatic courtesy; they are a joint response to an increasingly coercive regional environment.
But there are deeper questions beneath the surface: Is this a sign of Southeast Asia’s smaller nations breaking free from strategic ambivalence? Could a Manila-Dili partnership, built on shared democratic values and maritime vulnerability, evolve into the nucleus of a broader, rules-based coalition? Or, conversely, will such moves simply provoke Beijing to double down, further militarizing its artificial islands and economic influence?
The answers may determine not just the fate of the Philippines and East Timor, but the very nature of ASEAN unity and maritime order in the Indo-Pacific. In a sea increasingly crowded with great-power competition, this new partnership signals a profound truth: in the modern Indo-Pacific, influence is no longer measured solely in tonnage or missiles, but in alignment, credibility, and courage.
The Philippines’ Strategic Pivot: Assertive Transparency and the Search for New Allies
Under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., Manila has executed a sharp strategic turn from hedging to assertive transparency paired with a hard-edged external-defense build-up. The organizing blueprint is the Comprehensive Archipelagic Defense Concept (CADC), unveiled in early 2024, which reorients the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) toward deterrence-by-denial across the archipelago: mobile coastal fires, joint C2, and whole-of-government maritime law enforcement that fuses the Navy, Coast Guard, and civilian agencies into a single operating picture. Philippine and regional defense analyses since 2024–2025 describe CADC and related Navy constructs (e.g., Active Archipelagic Defense Structure) as the doctrinal backbone of this outward shift, tying modernization dollars to long-range precision strike, maritime domain awareness (MDA), and rapid joint response in the West Philippine Sea (WPS).
The second pillar of the pivot is informational: “assertive transparency.” Instead of treating Chinese coercion as a quiet bilateral problem, Manila now films, narrates, and publishes encounters at sea in near-real time, inviting media on board, and synchronizing videos with diplomatic protests to frame incidents within international law. Academic and policy work in 2024–2025 notes the benefits (mobilizing international support, denying Beijing a monopoly on the story) and the risks (messaging outrunning capability, or crisis escalation), but agrees the approach has changed the battlespace in Manila’s favor by forcing daylight onto gray-zone tactics previously carried out in the shadows. Government statements underline that transparency is a formal policy line “to expose China’s aggressive actions within the country’s maritime zones” not a one-off PR choice. Beijing’s party-state media has tried to invert the narrative. In November 2025 the Global Times labeled the Marcos government “radicalized” and “adventurist,” circulating a list of ten alleged ‘malicious ship collision’ incidents it claims the Philippines initiated from January 2023 to August 2024, a framing meant to recast China’s coast-guard behavior as restrained law enforcement while depicting Manila as the escalator. Whatever its propagandistic intent, the article is revealing evidence of how Manila’s publicity campaign has stung: China is now litigating the story in public, not just on the water.
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On the water, the crucible for this policy is the Second Thomas (Ayungin) Shoal resupply line to the marine detachment aboard the grounded BRP Sierra Madre, roughly 105 nautical miles off Palawan, well within the Philippine EEZ. 2024–2025 saw repeated water-cannoning, ramming, and unsafe maneuvers by the China Coast Guard and militia during Rotation and Reprovision (RORE) runs; in June 2024 Chinese personnel boarded Philippine RHIBs and destroyed equipment, and in a separate incident a Philippine marine lost a thumb after a PRC vessel rammed a boat during a resupply attempt. The AFP publicly condemned the actions as “illegal, coercive, aggressive and dangerous”; Manila’s rapid release of imagery hardened international reactions and reinforced alliance messaging. Critically, transparency is welded to operations and alliances, not performed in a vacuum. Manila has prioritized the Luzon Strait and northern approaches in Balikatan 2024–2025, integrating U.S. long-range fires and rehearsing maritime key-terrain security, precision strike, and contested logistics alongside Japanese and Australian participants. The exercises signal that assertive transparency is backed by combined capability and that any Taiwan Strait spillover would meet a rehearsed, multinational response in Philippine waters and airspace.
The pivot is also multi-service and cumulative. Beyond the Philippine Marine Corps’ BrahMos coastal batteries, the Army in 2025 stood up its first ground-based missile battalion, knitting land-attack and anti-ship fires into CADC’s archipelagic lattice; the Coast Guard has maintained persistent deployments at Sabina/Escoda to monitor suspected reclamation, rotating hulls to sustain presence despite harassment. These moves, paired with surging public support for the exposure policy, underline that Marcos Jr.’s stance is not episodic but institutional.
All of this explains why Manila is actively seeking new, like-minded partners including smaller maritime democracies such as East Timor, to amplify the diplomatic and informational effects of exposure while deepening practical cooperation on MDA, HADR, and law-of-the-sea advocacy. CADC hardens the perimeter; assertive transparency hardens the politics; and minilateral partnerships harden the coalition. Together, they raise both the operational and reputational costs of sustained coercion in the South China Sea, precisely the strategic aim of the Philippines’ pivot.
Courting East Timor: Formalizing a New Southeast Asian Partnership
The Philippines and East Timor are currently moving toward formalised defence cooperation, signalling a deepening of military and maritime ties between the two archipelagic states. In September 2024, the Chief of Staff of the Philippine Armed Forces hosted the Chief of Defence of Timor-Leste, during which they discussed “potential areas of cooperation in defence and security, with a focus on enhancing capabilities and promoting peace and stability within the region.” A joint declaration framework had first been signed back in 2012 that provided for training, education and information-sharing. The current efforts therefore reflect a shift toward deeper, more structured defence cooperation beyond mere goodwill.
The significance of this partnership is amplified by East Timor’s updated status within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). On 26 October 2025, Timor-Leste formally became the 11th ASEAN member state, marking the bloc’s first expansion since the 1990s. As the Philippines has long supported Timor-Leste’s membership bid, Manila stands to benefit from having a closely aligned partner within a regional body often criticised for its inability to craft unified stances on maritime security. Manila’s support for Dili’s accession, and the subsequent cooperation, positions the Philippines to draw in Timor-Leste as an ally within ASEAN’s political-security architecture.
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Although Timor-Leste does not possess a major naval force comparable to the Philippines or other regional powers, its strategic value lies in soft power, diplomacy, and capacity-building. Discussions between Manila and Dili include potential cooperation in maritime education, training for Timorese personnel in the Philippines, bilateral defence dialogue, intelligence sharing, and possibly infrastructure for maritime domain awareness (MDA). For the Philippines, bringing Timor-Leste into its security network enhances Manila’s regional outreach, creating a network of smaller maritime states that can coordinate diplomatically and operationally. For Timor-Leste, the partnership offers access to training, education and a role in regional security beyond its modest capabilities.
In sum, the Philippines’ courting of East Timor is not just a bilateral gesture but a calculated step in Manila’s broader strategy to build a coalition of maritime democracies, reinforce a rules-based order, and counter China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific. By integrating Timor-Leste into its security framework, the Philippines strengthens its diplomatic posture and opens up a new axis of cooperation in Southeast Asia, one that leverages shared values, geography, and mutual interest in preserving maritime sovereignty.
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East Timor’s Measured Diplomatic Stance and Regional Call for Peace
While the Philippines’ new outreach to East Timor (Timor-Leste) is often interpreted through a strategic or security lens, Dili’s approach to regional diplomacy remains distinctly measured and principle-driven, rooted in its history as a small nation that has consistently championed international law and peaceful resolution of disputes. This difference in tone shows that the emerging Manila–Dili partnership is not an anti-China military front, but rather an attempt to redefine regional solidarity through a rules-based, peace-oriented framework, one that blends deterrence with diplomacy.
In multiple statements since 2024, President José Ramos-Horta of East Timor has articulated his vision for the South China Sea as a “zone of peace and cooperation”, calling on all claimants including China, the Philippines, and Vietnam to “freeze their claims” and focus instead on joint development, conservation, and dialogue. This proposal evokes the long-standing Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality (ZOPFAN) principle that underpinned ASEAN’s early diplomacy during the Cold War, updated for the 21st-century maritime context. Ramos-Horta’s framing is neither naïve nor idealistic; it reflects East Timor’s consistent foreign policy of multilateral engagement and conflict avoidance, drawn from its own hard-earned experience of navigating asymmetry and great-power politics. As a small nation that endured decades of occupation and later achieved independence through international consensus, East Timor’s leadership sees law, not force, as the primary currency of legitimacy in international affairs.
Ramos-Horta has also issued a subtle but pointed caution to his fellow ASEAN members about external manipulation. In remarks made shortly before East Timor’s admission as ASEAN’s 11th member in October 2025, he stressed that Southeast Asian nations must “stay united… consult more, talk more and act together”, warning that countries that “seek separate solutions with a superpower” risk undermining regional cohesion. Though he avoided naming names, his message resonated widely among regional analysts as a veiled reference to the pressures facing ASEAN states caught between U.S. security alignments and Chinese economic leverage. By emphasizing consultation and unity, Ramos-Horta positioned Dili as a moral and diplomatic bridge, one that can advocate for peace without succumbing to great-power polarization. For the Philippines, whose recent assertive stance has often been painted by Beijing as “Western-aligned,” East Timor’s moderate voice offers a legitimizing complement, a reminder that the defense of international law need not equate to confrontation, and that peace-oriented coalitions can still anchor deterrence in principle rather than aggression.
East Timor’s own record of dispute resolution gives its diplomacy exceptional credibility in the maritime domain. Between 2016 and 2018, Dili engaged in compulsory conciliation with Australia under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), successfully concluding a binding maritime boundary agreement, a rare achievement in contemporary international law. This process, lauded by the United Nations as a “model for peaceful settlement of maritime disputes,” demonstrated that even asymmetrical states could compel adherence to legal mechanisms when backed by legitimacy and persistence. The precedent resonates strongly with the Philippines’ 2016 arbitral victory against China at The Hague, which invalidated Beijing’s Nine-Dash Line claim. Both nations, through different paths, have shown that international law remains a viable tool for smaller states to assert sovereignty against coercive powers.
In this light, East Timor’s engagement with the Philippines adds not escalation, but moral ballast to Manila’s evolving Indo-Pacific strategy. Dili’s advocacy for law and dialogue reinforces the “rules-based international order” Manila often invokes, offering a Southeast Asian voice of moderation that can temper perceptions of militarization. The Philippines gains an ally that strengthens its diplomatic legitimacy, while East Timor gains a platform within ASEAN and the broader Indo-Pacific security discourse. Together, their partnership embodies a nuanced blend of strategic assertiveness and principled diplomacy, proving that regional resilience in the South China Sea can be built not only on missiles and patrols, but also on law, dialogue, and collective moral resolve.
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Case Study of Escalation: The Aggressive Actions of China in Philippine Waters
The Philippines’ search for new defense and diplomatic partners such as East Timor, is rooted in an increasingly volatile maritime environment, where China’s coercive behavior in Philippine waters has escalated to levels unseen in decades. The period from mid-2023 through 2025 has seen a transformation of the West Philippine Sea from a contested zone of rhetoric into a theater of sustained physical confrontation, with Beijing employing a calibrated mix of military intimidation, grey-zone operations, and paramilitary coercion. These actions have gone beyond deterrence into deliberate confrontation, testing Manila’s resolve, straining its operational endurance, and threatening the safety of its servicemen, developments that have made alliance-building not just strategic, but existential.
The most egregious example came on June 17, 2024, when a resupply mission to the grounded BRP Sierra Madre at Second Thomas Shoal (Ayungin Shoal) turned violent. During the operation, Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) personnel, many reportedly armed with axes, pikes, and knives, boarded a Philippine Rigid-Hull Inflatable Boat (RHIB) tasked with transporting supplies to marines stationed aboard the Sierra Madre. Eyewitness reports and subsequent video footage confirmed that the Chinese crew smashed communication gear, confiscated rifles and handheld radios, punctured the vessel’s hull, and physically assaulted several Filipino personnel. One marine suffered the loss of a thumb during the melee, underscoring the human cost of these grey-zone encounters. The incident was later described by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) as “illegal, aggressive, coercive, and barbaric,” prompting formal diplomatic protests and global condemnation. Analysts noted that the boarding represented a dangerous escalation, the first time in years that Chinese personnel had physically attacked Philippine servicemen in such a direct and organized fashion.
This June 2024 clash was not an isolated event but the culmination of a broader pattern of maritime coercion. Throughout 2024, Philippine monitoring stations and think-tank satellite data reported a record surge of 207 Chinese vessels, a mix of People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) warships, CCG cutters, and China Maritime Militia trawlers, operating simultaneously around key flashpoints such as Second Thomas Shoal, Scarborough Shoal (Bajo de Masinloc), and Sabina Shoal. This swarm activity often coincided with Philippine resupply or patrol missions, suggesting deliberate coordination to envelop and intimidate Manila’s smaller fleet. Maritime analysts from the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) and the Institute for Maritime and Ocean Affairs (IMOA) observed that the scale, duration, and synchronization of these deployments marked a qualitative leap in China’s grey-zone operations, transforming them from sporadic harassment into continuous, siege-like pressure.
The methods of coercion employed by Chinese forces have followed a grimly consistent pattern: high-pressure water cannon blasts, intentional ramming, blocking maneuvers, and theft or destruction of equipment. In August 2024, for instance, Chinese vessels targeted two Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) ships, the BRP Cabra and BRP Engaño, with water cannons powerful enough to shatter external fittings, crack radomes, and disable communications. Satellite imagery later showed additional PLAN and militia vessels shadowing the disabled ships, forcing the PCG to withdraw for repairs. Similar incidents have been reported near Sabina Shoal, where Chinese ships employed lasers to disorient Filipino sailors, a tactic previously condemned by the U.S. Navy and regional partners as “reckless and unsafe.” The cumulative effect of these actions has been to transform the West Philippine Sea into a permanent pressure zone, where China tests the thresholds of Manila’s restraint and the credibility of its alliances.
These confrontations reveal a deliberate Chinese strategy of graduated escalation: using the China Coast Guard and maritime militia as instruments of state policy to advance territorial control without crossing the threshold of outright warfare. Beijing’s objective appears to be both operational and psychological, to normalize harassment, exhaust Philippine resources, and send a message to smaller Southeast Asian claimants that resistance is futile. Yet, paradoxically, this sustained aggression has had the opposite effect: it has galvanized Philippine resolve, driven the military modernization agenda under Re-Horizon 3, and pushed Manila to strengthen partnerships with the U.S., Japan, Australia, and now East Timor.
Each act of coercion, each damaged hull and wounded sailor, reinforces the logic behind the Philippines’ new security doctrine and its search for solidarity among smaller maritime democracies. The June 17 2024 incident and the record deployment of Chinese vessels in Philippine waters stand as the most tangible evidence that the West Philippine Sea crisis has entered a new phase, one where Manila can no longer rely solely on diplomacy or legal rulings. In this volatile climate, the Philippines’ alliances, even with non-traditional partners like East Timor, have become strategic necessities, serving as both a moral statement and a survival mechanism in the face of an increasingly aggressive maritime power.
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The Global Stakes: Economic Figures and the Rule of Law
The South China Sea is far more than a regional flashpoint, it is a global economic lifeline and legal battleground whose stability directly affects international trade, energy security, and the credibility of the international rules-based order. Every year, an estimated US $3.36 trillion worth of global commerce transits this vast maritime corridor, representing roughly one-third of all global maritime trade. These sea lanes connect the manufacturing hubs of East Asia with markets in Europe, the Middle East, and North America, making them indispensable to the global economy. Any disruption, even short-term, would have cascading effects on shipping costs, energy prices, and supply chain stability, affecting industries and consumers worldwide. For this reason, the contest over the South China Sea transcends regional boundaries; it has become a matter of international economic security.
Ironically, the nation most assertive in staking maritime claims China, is also the most economically dependent on the waterway. Approximately 80 percent of China’s energy imports and nearly 40 percent of its total trade volume pass through the South China Sea, particularly via the Malacca and Sunda Straits. This paradox shows the delicate balance Beijing must maintain: its coercive actions undermine the very maritime stability on which its economy relies. Analysts often refer to this as China’s “Malacca dilemma” , a recognition that while Beijing seeks strategic dominance over these waters, it cannot afford the political or economic costs of an actual conflict that would jeopardize its vital trade arteries. Yet, by increasing militarization and grey-zone tactics, China risks inviting a broader counter-coalition that could complicate its own access to the global commons.
In this context, the Philippines’ diplomatic stance, grounded firmly in international law, has become a rallying point for regional and global partners who share an interest in preserving free and open seas. Manila, with backing from the European Union (EU) and like-minded partners, consistently calls for “full and faithful compliance with the 2016 Arbitration Award” issued under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The arbitral tribunal’s ruling, which invalidated China’s expansive “Nine-Dash Line” claim remains the legal foundation of the Philippines’ maritime position. The EU, Japan, Australia, and the United States have all reaffirmed the award’s binding nature, framing it as a test case for international law’s durability in the face of coercive revisionism. For Manila, every patrol, protest, and partnership reinforces not only its sovereignty but the universal principle that might not make right in the global maritime order.
The burgeoning partnership with East Timor thus fits within a larger pattern of multilateral coalition-building. Manila’s strategy in 2025 has expanded well beyond bilateral U.S. support. The Philippines signed a defense pact with Canada in November 2025, formalizing training, logistics, and interoperability programs. It also joined joint maritime patrols with the United States, Australia, and New Zealand later that year, a clear demonstration of the Philippines’ evolving networked defense diplomacy. Each new partnership widens the arc of coordination across the Indo-Pacific, from the Western Pacific through the South China Sea to the Timor and Arafura Seas, reinforcing a shared commitment to open sea lanes, lawful conduct, and collective deterrence.
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Conclusion
The strengthening of ties between the Philippines and East Timor represents far more than the formalization of a bilateral agreement; it reflects a regional awakening to the shared need for collective security and steadfast adherence to international law amid intensifying maritime coercion. What began as Manila’s response to encroachment in its exclusive economic zone is evolving into a broader Indo-Pacific movement, one that seeks to anchor deterrence in legality, cooperation, and transparency rather than confrontation.
For the Philippines, this outreach enhances its defensive posture while weaving new layers of diplomatic engagement; for East Timor, it offers a platform to project principled diplomacy within ASEAN and beyond. Together, their partnership signals the growing recognition that defending maritime order is a collective regional responsibility and a global imperative. By internationalizing the South China Sea issue, reframing it from a bilateral territorial dispute into a universal challenge to lawful navigation and sovereignty, Manila and its partners are reshaping the narrative. Ultimately, the success of this coalition will not be measured by the size of its fleets, but by its ability to safeguard peace, uphold the rule of law, and preserve the freedom of the world’s most vital waterways for generations to come.
