‘Economic coercion’
THE Philippines, the United States (US) and Japan have agreed to work against what they called “economic coercion” by third party countries.
They also affirmed their intention to cooperate in enhancing their resilience to and response capabilities to potential economic coercion.
Reports did not mention, however, any countries they claimed to be doing “economic cocercion” to Manila, Washington and Tokyo.
The reports said delegations from the Philippines, the US and Japan held an informal trilateral discussion in Manila last week.
The discussion centered on building each other’s economic resilience independently to counter economic coercion done by other nations.
US state department spokesman Matthew Miller said the dialogue was chaired by Ma. Corazon Halili -Dichosa of the Board of Investments (BOI).
The US and Japan delegations were headed by Jonathan Fritz and Mochizuki Chihiro, respectively.
The Manila dialogue was held a week after the three allies went into a cybersecurity operation on October 18 on the sidelines of the 9th Singapore International Cyber Week.
Together with other nations, the three allies are also partners in ensuring peace and stability in the vital West Philippine Sea (WPS).
It’s a move in the right direction, according to many foreign observers.