Defence to space, trade to tech: India, Philippines to deepen ties

Why in the News

A year after New Delhi and Manila elevated their relationship to a strategic partnership, the Prime Minister and the President of the Philippines agreed to deepen cooperation across defence and security, trade and investment, space, railway infrastructure, fintech and education. The Philippines also decided to join the India led Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI). The two leaders met on the sidelines of the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi. The Philippines President attended the Summit as the current chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which places the meeting inside India’s Act East policy and its Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with ASEAN. Both sides are driven by shared concerns over China’s territorial assertiveness in the Indo Pacific and the South China Sea, and the engagement is therefore being built on defence supply and maritime law at the same time as on trade and technology.

What does the partnership now cover?

1. The declared breadth of cooperation: The two sides agreed to deepen collaboration across defence and security, trade and investment, space, railway infrastructure, fintech, education, tourism, science and technology, innovation and people to people ties.
2. The 2025-29 defence roadmap: India and the Philippines adopted a 2025-29 roadmap to expand military training, staff talks and maritime security cooperation in the Indo Pacific.
3. Philippine accession to the CDRI: The Philippines has decided to join the CDRI, which brings a highly disaster exposed archipelago into a coalition India created.
4. The ASEAN chairship as the regional frame: The visit’s significance rests on the Philippines holding the ASEAN chair while India runs a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with the grouping.

What anchors the defence relationship?

1. The BrahMos supply deal of 2022: The 2022 deal to supply BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles to the Philippine Navy marked the major milestone in security ties.
2. Tri service staff talks: Both countries hold regular staff talks for their Army, Navy and Air Force to improve joint security cooperation.
3. The roadmap’s named focus areas: The roadmap’s focus is military training, staff talks and maritime security, which are the areas a supply relationship has to be converted into.

Where does the economic relationship stand?

1. Bilateral trade volume: Bilateral trade has grown past $3 billion.
2. Drivers of the trade growth: The growth has been driven by Indian pharmaceutical exports, information technology services and agricultural cooperation.
3. Space, railways and fintech as new areas: Space, railway infrastructure and fintech have been named as expansion areas, which are sectors with no existing trade base to build on.

Why does the South China Sea frame the engagement?

1. Shared assessment of Chinese assertiveness: Both sides are driven by shared concerns over China’s aggressive territorial assertiveness in the Indo Pacific and the South China Sea.
2. India’s stated legal position: India has consistently supported a rules based maritime order in the South China Sea, based on international law and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the treaty that defines maritime zones and the rights of states within them.
3. Value of the legal position to Manila: A legal position held by a large external power supports a claimant state that cannot match China’s naval weight on its own.

Challenges to the India Philippines strategic partnership

1. A defence supply relationship is narrow and slow to widen: One missile contract does not by itself create a standing industrial relationship, and follow on orders depend on the buyer’s budget cycle rather than on political intent. Eg. The BrahMos supply arrangement dates from 2022 and remains the single flagship item in the defence relationship.
   The Fix: Move from outright sale to a maintenance, repair and overhaul facility in the Philippines, so the relationship generates recurring work rather than a single delivery.
2. Trade is small relative to both economies: A bilateral figure near $3 billion is a fraction of what either country trades with China, which limits the economic leverage either can bring. Eg. Indian pharmaceutical exports and information technology services carry most of the existing trade, and neither is a large employer in the Philippines.
   The Fix: Open negotiations on a preferential trade arrangement within the ASEAN framework, so tariff lines rather than announcements decide the growth rate.
3. ASEAN itself does not hold a common line on the South China Sea: The grouping works by consensus, so a member with close economic ties to Beijing can block a collective position. Eg. The Code of Conduct negotiations between ASEAN and China have run since 2002 without a binding text.
   The Fix: Build the maritime agenda through bilateral and minilateral arrangements with individual claimant states, rather than waiting on a grouping wide position.
4. Escalation risk sits in the same waters as the cooperation: Maritime security cooperation with a claimant state can be read by China as taking sides in a live dispute, which raises the cost of the relationship. Eg. Chinese and Philippine vessels have repeatedly come into contact around contested shoals in the South China Sea.
   The Fix: Frame cooperation as capacity building for coast guard and humanitarian response, so the activity is defensible in law and difficult to characterise as an alignment.
5. Disaster exposure is a standing constraint on both economies: An archipelago that absorbs several typhoons a year loses infrastructure faster than it can add it, which limits the returns on any investment commitment. Eg. The Philippines is among the most disaster exposed countries in the world, which is why its accession to the CDRI matters.
   The Fix: Tie Indian infrastructure financing in the Philippines to resilience standards set through the CDRI, so the assets built survive the hazard they are built into.

Conclusion

The partnership is a year old and has moved from a single defence sale to a dated roadmap, a disaster resilience coalition and a list of new sectors. What it does not yet have is volume, since a trade relationship of about $3 billion and one missile contract cannot carry the strategic weight both sides describe. The measurable markers over the next year are whether the 2025-29 roadmap produces a second defence contract and whether India converts the Philippines’ ASEAN chairship into movement on the India ASEAN trade agreement review.

Back2Basics: Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure

1. Coalition membership and purpose: An international partnership of national governments, United Nations agencies, multilateral development banks, the private sector and academic institutions, working to make infrastructure systems resilient to disaster and climate risk.
2. Launch at the 2019 United Nations Climate Action Summit: It was launched by India at the United Nations Climate Action Summit in September 2019.
3. Secretariat location: Its secretariat is in New Delhi.
4. The Infrastructure for Resilient Island States programme: Its flagship programme is the Infrastructure for Resilient Island States initiative, which supports small island developing states in building infrastructure that can withstand extreme events.

Matching Previous Year Question

“[2020, GS2, 15 marks] What is the significance of Indo-US defence deals over Indo-Russian defence deals? Discuss with reference to stability in the Indo-Pacific region.”