From Quad To “Squad”: Why The Philippines Is Becoming Washington’s New Anti-China Proxy

By Uriel Araujo

As the Quad struggles with internal contradictions and worsening US-India tensions, the Philippines is rapidly becoming central to Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategy. Joint military exercises, missile deployments, and deeper alliance integration point to a more confrontational regional order.

Recent developments across the Indo-Pacific reveal a deeper strategic transformation underway: expanded US basing access in the Philippines, new missile deployments near Taiwan’s maritime approaches, growing trilateral and quadrilateral military exercises, and even emerging intelligence-sharing arrangements between Manila and Tokyo all point toward the gradual formation of a more hard-security-oriented regional framework directed at Beijing.

Meanwhile, the Quad itself appears increasingly adrift. Amid worsening US-India tensions and New Delhi’s persistent refusal to abandon strategic autonomy, the Philippines is quietly “displacing” India in Washington’s broader Indo-Pacific strategy.

Writing for Foreign Policy, Sarang Shidore, director of the Global South Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, argues that the Philippines has actually “replaced” India in Washington’s strategic approach toward Beijing.

Shidore’s point is simple: the Quad never managed to decide whether it was a security bloc or a public-goods platform. It spoke vaguely about a “free and open Indo-Pacific,” thereby avoiding openly naming China, largely because India resisted turning the mechanism into an anti-Beijing military alliance. New Delhi, after all, shares a long disputed border with China and continues pursuing strategic autonomy through BRICS, the SCO, and diversified bilateral ties. Unlike Japan or Australia, India never accepted the role of subordinate junior partner.

One may recall that the Quad itself emerged from post-tsunami coordination efforts in 2004 before being revived under Trump in 2017 (in his first presidency, before Biden). Yet, thus far, its practical achievements have remained arguably underwhelming. Vaccine diplomacy underperformed during the pandemic. In addition, infrastructure and humanitarian initiatives lacked visibility; Southeast Asia remained rather unconvinced.

Meanwhile, the one area where the Quad actually progressed, from a Western perspective, was precisely the domain it officially avoided emphasizing: military interoperability through the Malabar naval exercises.

Shidore argues that Washington increasingly views the so-called “first island chain” as the decisive theatre against China, not the Indian Ocean. This explains why the Philippines has become rather central to US planning. A newer grouping, informally dubbed the “Squad,” comprising the US, Japan, Australia, and the Philippines, is now, some argue, potentially more operationally relevant than the Quad itself, and even the embryo of an “Asian‐style NATO”, as scholar Renato Cruz De Castro argues. Unlike India, the Philippines is geographically proximate to Taiwan and the South China Sea, and is now explicitly aligned against Beijing, and fully integrated into US alliance structures.

Sure enough, this development did not emerge overnight. Back in 2024, Washington’s growing prioritization of the Philippines over India in Indo-Pacific security planning was noted by some. A CSIS analysis of that same year similarly acknowledged that American strategists increasingly saw India as the “weak link” within the Quad.

The reasons are obvious enough: for one thing, India has consistently refused to participate in freedom-of-navigation patrols in the South China Sea. Moreover, it also maintains defense and energy ties with Russia. In addition, it rejects NATO-style bloc discipline. And, perhaps more importantly, despite tensions with China, New Delhi continues balancing among multiple poles. As I argued back in 2022, India’s geopolitical weight stems precisely from its role as a balancing power rather than a compliant military proxy.

Under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., meanwhile, the Philippines has moved aggressively in the opposite direction. Washington now enjoys expanded EDCA basing access across the archipelago, including facilities facing Taiwan. Large-scale Balikatan exercises have expanded dramatically. Joint patrols with Japan and Australia are becoming normalized. Reciprocal access arrangements are deepening. The result is a far more militarized regional architecture centered on hard-security deterrence.

I’ve recently warned that the deployment of NMESIS anti-ship missile systems and Typhon launchers in northern Philippine territories signals operational preparations for a potential Taiwan contingency. And, for his part, Beijing does not interpret these moves as “defensive” at all. From China’s perspective, the Philippines is increasingly becoming a forward operating platform for US power projection. No wonder tensions in the South China Sea continue escalating.

Be as it may, Washington clearly prefers reliable and proximate military assets over India’s persistent strategic autonomy. The Squad thus offers immediate utility: all members are either formal US treaty allies or deeply integrated security partners. And military interoperability is already advanced enough for rapid operational coordination. Unlike the Quad, the Squad is not shy about naming China directly, for instance. Yet this strategic shift carries profound risks for Manila itself.

The truth is that the Philippines is locking itself into taking an increasingly exposed role amid the US-China rivalry, to put it mildly. In other words, by embedding itself into America’s containment architecture, Manila risks transforming its territory into a prime target in any Taiwan or South China Sea conflict scenario. And History offers plenty of warnings about client states caught in great-power struggles.

Moreover, overdependence on Washington exposes the Philippines to economic vulnerability. Secondary sanctions risks, trade weaponization, and policy volatility remain very real under Trump’s style of foreign policy. As we’ve seen, one day Washington demands “burden sharing”; the next it threatens tariffs even against allies.

Meanwhile, much of Asia is moving toward diversified multipolar arrangements. BRICS expansion, de-dollarization initiatives, South-South trade corridors, and alternative financing mechanisms increasingly offer developing countries options outside Western-dominated structures. ASEAN’s traditional emphasis on hedging and regional autonomy remains far more compatible with this evolving environment than bloc militarization.

In other words, the Philippines is not simply “replacing” India. Rather, Washington is abandoning the difficult task of managing autonomous regional powers in favor of assembling more obedient frontline coalitions closer to China’s periphery, so to speak

That strategy may satisfy Pentagon planners in the short term. But it also risks turning Southeast Asia into yet another major arena of escalating global tensions.

Uriel Araujo, Anthropology PhD, is a social scientist specializing in ethnic and religious conflicts, with extensive research on geopolitical dynamics and cultural interactions.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.

Categories: Analysis, Geopolitics, International Affairs

Tags: ASEAN, BRICS, China, Geopolitics, India, Indian Ocean, Indo-Pacific, Philippines, QUAD, SCO, USA