Tag Archives: Taiwan
Philippines: Subic Bay “makeover” as new pivot for US warships
Philippine government gives OK for US to use old bases

CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa — The Philippine government said this week that the United States military is again welcome to use Subic Bay and the sprawling Clark Air Base, two decades after the installations were abandoned due to political friction with Manila, according to media reports.
Philippine Defense Undersecretary Honorio Azcueta said U.S. troops, ships and aircraft can make use of the old bases, as long as prior approval is granted by the government. Azcueta made the comments following a meeting with Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey, who traveled to the country as part of a regional trip to generate support for a military pivot toward Asia, according to the Philippine Star newspaper.
The United States had key bases in the Philippines for decades after World War II, but relations broke down in the early 1990s, and the facilities were returned.
The announcement of an expanded military relationship this week comes after months of talks between Washington and Manila, and appears to be another step forward in the U.S. plan to bolster forces in the Asia-Pacific region.
“They can come here provided they have prior coordination from the government,” Azcueta said following the meeting at the Philippine military headquarters of Camp Aguinaldo in Manila, according to the Philippine Star newspaper. “That’s what we want … increase in exercises and interoperability.” Continue reading
US hegemony-media on the US’ military “pivot” to Asia
[This year has seen US power beginning to shift its central focus from the middle east to Asia. In line with this, the Pentagon has been making new deals for military force “visitations” and deployments, from Okinawa to Guam, Australia, and Philippines, along with new force buildups in Hawaii, Taiwan, Korea, and “joint operational and training” arrangements with India, Vietnam and elsewhere. This article, from TIME magazine in July, explores the responses to, and embraces of, these US moves in the Philippines. — Frontlines ed.]
American ‘Pivot’ to Asia Divides the Philippines
Recent trouble in the South China Sea has renewed debate as to whether the U.S. is a trusted friend, or an old foe
By Catherine Traywick , TIME magazine, July 23, 2012

Romeo Ranoco / Reuters — Members of a militant women’s group hold up placards condemning the joint Philippine-U.S. military exercises during a protest in front of the U.S. embassy in Manila on April 27, 2012
Bai Ali Indayla, a human-rights worker and antimilitary activist, has met just one American soldier. They convened at a picnic table inside a Philippine army camp in Mindanao in 2010 to discuss the alleged suicide of a Filipino who died under mysterious circumstances after starting a job with the U.S. military’s counterterrorism program. Indayla believed the death was suspicious, and she wanted answers, but her first and only interaction with a U.S. soldier earned her none. He was dismissive, she says, as well as arrogant and profane. After a brief and terse exchange, he walked out of the meeting without warning, and she walked away with all of her prejudices soundly affirmed.
The encounter, colored by her mistrust and his apparent indifference, reflects an enduring dynamic at play between two forces in Philippine society: the U.S. military, whose decades-long occupation of the islands eventually gave way to civil unrest, and a small but historically significant network of activists who believe the former’s presence is tantamount to neocolonialism. As China more aggressively asserts its claim over the South China Sea and the U.S. ponders a “pivot” to Asia, the gap between these groups seems to widen, calling fresh attention to the question of U.S.-Philippine ties.
The relationship between ordinary Filipinos and U.S. armed forces is a tortured one, dating back to America’s “liberation” of the Philippines from colonial Spain more than a century ago. The U.S. takeover of the Philippines in 1899 kicked off a short, bloody war, during which Filipinos were forced into reconcentrados (a type of concentration camp), massacred in their villages and subjected to a new torture technique now known as waterboarding. When the U.S. finally gave the Philippines its independence in 1945, sprawling American military bases remained — and with them, an exploding sex industry and a legacy of human-rights violations widely publicized by the national press.
A decades-long antimilitary movement culminated in the 1991 closure of American bases and the ousting of U.S. troops. Yet American forces have nevertheless maintained a limited but continuous presence in the country, where they conduct regular joint training exercises and have, in recent years, extended antiterrorism efforts. Dubbed “the second front of the war on terror” in 2002, western Mindanao has played host to 600-strong U.S. troop rotations as they pursue two al-Qaeda-linked terrorist groups. Though officially base-less, barracks, ports and communications infrastructure emerged within and near the Philippine military camps that host American soldiers. This year, the Aquino administration granted the U.S. Navy permission to use the former U.S. base in Subic Bay for the service of U.S. warships. Continue reading
Taiwan turns 1950s military brothel into museum to lure tourists
[This article is about Taiwan attracting tourists to visit a “military brothel museum.” It claims these brothels– for Kuomindang soldiers who had fled from mainland China after the victory of the revolution in 1949–were set up “so the military would not run into trouble with…the local women.” The article does not present this sordid history from the perspective of the struggle for justice for the conscripted “comfort women.”–Frontlines ed.]
12 November 2010
Taipei – Taiwan turned a Cold War era military brothel on an offshore island into a museum Friday in order to lure tourists, including visitors from mainland China. The brothel, now dubbed the “Special Teahouse Museum,” once hosted soldiers who were guarding what was seen as a key position for Taiwan to prevent a Chinese raid from the mainland.
Some 50,000 troops were deployed on Kinmen during the Cold War and the military set up special tea houses for the soldiers, so they would not run into trouble with the inhabitants of the island, especially the local women. The Defence Ministry shut the so called tea houses on Kinmen in 1990 after some lawmakers condemned the establishments as a violation of women’s rights.
It was also during that decade that the area switched from being a military reserve to coming under civilian control. The museum was renovated as a a cost of nearly 500,000 dollars – and uses photos, posters and tape recordings to attract tourists. Also on display are the original reception rooms and tickets used by soldiers to buy time with the prostitutes.