At least 40,000 military troops from more than 30 countries are simultaneously taking part in US-led war games across the Asia-Pacific this June. The US launched the Resolute Dragon war games in Japan, in partnership with the militarist regime of Sanae Takaichi; Valiant Shield in Guam; and the massive RIMPAC in Hawaii, involving 25,000–31,000 troops.

The simultaneous, coordinated war games concentrate along the First and Second Island Chains as a “rehearsal” for the various militaries’ preparation for the imperialist war against China.

With the Marcos regime as accomplice, this US-led broad “war rehearsal” includes the Kamandag exercises by Philippine, Japanese, and Korean troops. These war games will run from June 15 to July 1 and will use facilities and staging areas (called “nodes”) in Northern and Central Luzon, Palawan, Cavite, Tawi‑tawi, and Metro Manila. The regime’s full-scale use of these areas for US imperialist purposes grossly betrays Philippine sovereignty and the Filipino people.

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the entire national-democratic movement strongly condemned the puppet Marcos Jr regime for its open subservience to the US and for dragging the country into the geopolitical clash between two imperialist powers.

“Allowing exercises like Kamandag on the Philippines’ strategic coasts, the Marcos regime is pushing the Filipino people to the brink of danger,” CPP chief information officer Marco Valbuena said. “The AFP and the US flaunts ‘regional stability’ and ‘defense,’ but these are empty justifications.”

He added that these are mere pretexts for handing the Philippines and its people over to the US’ path to disaster, and for exposing other peoples in Asia to the danger of its armed confrontation with China.

“The US is not defending sovereignty; it is openly intervening and militarizing, trampling on the region’s peoples’ right to live in peace,” he said. “US imperialism is the number-one terrorist and instigator of worldwide war.”

The CPP called on Filipinos, Japanese, Chinese, Americans, and other peoples in the Asia-Pacific to oppose US imperialist “war rehearsal,” and to expel US troops from their countries.

“US military bases in the Philippines and across Asia must be dismantled, and the imperialist war that will bring only widespread destruction and hunger to the region must be stopped,” it said.