Thousands of American and Philippine troops, joined for the first time by a significant contingent of Japanese forces, began annual military exercises Monday set against the backdrop of the Middle East war.

The war games will feature live-fire exercises in the north of the Philippines facing the Taiwan Strait, as well as a province off the disputed South China Sea, where Philippine and Chinese forces have engaged in repeated confrontations.

In one drill, the Japanese military, which is contributing about 1,400 personnel, will use a Type 88 cruise missile to sink a World War II-era minesweeper off the coast of northern Luzon island.

More than 17,000 soldiers, airmen and sailors are taking part in the 19-day Balikatan, or “Shoulder to Shoulder,” exercises — about the same number as last year’s edition, including contingents from Australia, New Zealand, France and Canada.

Balikatan comes as Iran and the United States, along with Israel, edge towards the end of the two-week ceasefire that halted the Middle East war, ignited by surprise US-Israeli strikes on the Islamic republic.

“Regardless of the challenges elsewhere in the world, the United States’ focus on the Indo-Pacific and our ironclad commitment to the Philippines remains unwavering,” US Lieutenant General Christian Wortman said at Monday’s opening ceremony.

Without providing precise numbers, Wortman, commander of the Marine Expeditionary Force, later told reporters that approximately 10,000 US personnel would take part in the exercises.

Philippine military chief General Romeo Brawner added that US Indo-Pacific Command chief Admiral Samuel Paparo had assured him at the war’s outbreak that this year’s Balikatan would be “the biggest ever”.

Among the high-end weapons expected to be used is a US Typhon missile system that has been in the archipelago since visiting US forces left it there in 2024, provoking outrage from Beijing.

“We anticipate that it will be incorporated at some level during the course of the exercise,” Wortman said.

‘Playing with fire’

While both militaries insisted that no exercises would take place “near Taiwan”, coastal defence drills are set fewer than 200 kilometres (120 miles) from the island’s southern coast.

Beijing has ramped up military pressure around self-ruled Taiwan, which it considers part of its territory and has threatened to use force to seize.

China slammed the joint exercises on Monday, saying the United States, Japan and the Philippines were “playing with fire”.

“What the Asia-Pacific region needs most is peace and tranquility, and what it needs least is the introduction of external forces to sow division and confrontation,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told a news briefing.

“We wish to remind the countries concerned that blindly binding themselves together in the name of security will only be akin to playing with fire — ultimately backfiring upon themselves,” he added.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos warned in November that given his country’s proximity to the island democracy, “a war over Taiwan will drag the Philippines, kicking and screaming, into the conflict.”

See also: Philippines accuses China of cyanide poisoning in contested waters

In February, US, Japanese and Philippine aircraft patrolled over the Bashi Channel that separates the Philippines from Taiwan to test what Manila called their “ability to operate seamlessly together in complex maritime environments”.

Japan’s first Balikatan as a full participant follows the signing of a reciprocal access agreement approved by the Japanese Diet last June.

Colonel Takeshi Higuchi of Tokyo’s joint staff told Japanese media the drills would “contribute to creating a security environment that tolerates no attempt to unilaterally change the status quo by force”.

Marcos has been building up security ties with Western nations to deter China. Over the past two years, Manila has also signed visiting forces or equivalent agreements with New Zealand, Canada and France to facilitate joint military exercises.

Outside the Manila base where Monday’s opening ceremony was held, a group of about 50 people protested against the exercises, holding aloft signs branding US President Donald Trump an “imperialist terrorist” and demanding US forces leave the country.

Nine Chinese nationals were arrested at Sri Lanka’s main international airport on Thursday while attempting to smuggle in communication equipment allegedly intended for cyberscam operations, customs authorities said.

The arrests come two weeks after police detained 152 foreign nationals, mostly Chinese, for allegedly running a cyberscam operation out of a hotel in the island’s northwest.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told AFP in Beijing on Thursday that they were willing to “cooperate to jointly combat criminal activities, including online fraud”.

In the latest incident, Sri Lankan officers recovered 383 used mobile phones, 101 tablet computers, six Wi-Fi routers and GPS trackers from nine arriving Chinese nationals, a customs spokesman said.

“The equipment was taped to the bodies of the suspects,” the spokesman added, noting the haul was valued at 24 million rupees ($78,000) and was confiscated.

Separately, another six Chinese passengers were arrested Thursday while allegedly trying to smuggle in 75,900 cigarettes packed into their luggage, officials said.

The cigarettes, valued at 11.3 million rupees ($37,000), were confiscated.

Organised criminal gangs have used casinos, hotels and fortified compounds across Southeast Asia as bases to carry out sophisticated online scams, defrauding people through cryptocurrency investment schemes and fake romantic relationships, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.

Until a crackdown this year, the region was the epicentre of the multibillion-dollar online scam industry, in which hundreds of thousands of fraudsters — some trafficked, others willing workers — cheat internet users globally.

“Due to Sri Lanka’s well-developed telecommunications infrastructure, favourable geographical location and relatively lenient visa policies, some telecom fraud gangs have moved to Sri Lanka,” the Chinese embassy in Colombo said recently.

“That is why such cases have been increasing in Sri Lanka recently,” it added, noting that the scammers had been targeting Chinese nationals at home.

China on Monday called reports it had supplied or intended to supply weapons to Iran “baseless smears”, after several outlets quoted US intelligence sources to that effect.

On Sunday US President Donald Trump threatened Beijing with a “staggering” new tariff of 50 percent if it were to provide military assistance to Tehran.

His comments came the same day US outlet CNN reported that US intelligence indicated China was preparing to deliver new air defence systems to Iran within the next few weeks, citing three people familiar with the assessments.

Over the weekend, The New York Times quoted US officials as saying US intelligence suggested Beijing might have already sent a shipment of shoulder-fired missiles.

China denied the reports, saying Monday it had “always adopted a cautious and responsible attitude towards the export of military items, implementing strict controls in accordance with its own export control laws and regulations and its international obligations”.

“We oppose baseless smears or malicious association,” foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told a regular news briefing.

China is a key economic partner of Iran — it buys most of the Middle Eastern country’s oil.

The countries have no formal military pact, though, and many analysts say Beijing largely sees the relationship between the two as transactional.

China also has strong economic ties to the Gulf countries and has criticised Iran’s attacks on them over the course of the war.