We have returned. The American military has gained long-sought access to nine critical bases in the Philippines in a challenge to China’s claims to Taiwan and the South China Sea.

The renaissance of American military power close to the Chinese mainland marks a sharp escalation in the confrontation to which China is responding with shows of strength that raise the specter of conflict in a country for which American forces fought some of World War II’s toughest battles.

As 12,200 American and 5.400 Philippine troops geared up for the largest exercises on Philippine soil in recent years, China’s foreign ministry charged that Washington, by “increasing its military deployment,” was “driven by a zero-sum mentality in pursuit of selfish interests.”

“This would only lead to more tensions and less peace and stability in the region,” spokeswoman Mao Ning said, advising nearby countries “to think about what is right for the region” for the sake of “peace and stability as well as their own interests.”

That outburst comes in response to approval by the Philippines president, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., to year-around access by American forces to three bases in the northern Philippines and one on the southern island of Palawan. The northernmost base is 250 miles from the island democracy of Taiwan, the Republic of China that Beijing’s president, Xi Jinping, vows to recover for his regime.

These are in addition to five bases to which American forces already had access under the “Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement” with the Philippines as confirmed by the American and Philippine defense secretaries, Lloyd Austin and Carlito Galvez Jr. 

“We’re not seeking permanent basing,” Mr. Austin has made clear, but access means the Americans can move forces in and out as needed and can also pre-position weapons, ammunition, and heavy equipment for military exercises or actual conflict.

The return of American forces to the Philippines, albeit in relatively small numbers, conjures memories of an era when thousands of Americans were stationed at two of America’s largest overseas bases — the Navy at Subic Bay, facing the South China Sea northwest of Manila, and the Air Force at Clark Air Base, north of the capital. 

Both reverted to Philippine control after the Philippine senate refused to renew the leases on the bases in 1991 after decades of American military presence on the archipelago. 

The Americans drove the Spanish from the Philippines in 1898 and had defeated Philippine revolutionaries by 1902. Japanese forces invaded the Philippines in December 1941, forcing the surrender of American troops. General Douglas MacArthur, having already fled to Australia, vowed, “I shall return.”

That promise was fulfilled when MacArthur landed on the island of Leyte in October 1944, 10 months before the Japanese surrender in August 1945.

Just as the South Korean president, Yoon Suk-yeol, has reversed the policies of his liberal predecessor, who opposed joint military exercises, so the Philippines president has wanted the security of American troops after his predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, spurned them while sucking up to Beijing.

American and Philippine forces next week will be staging war games in record numbers on land, in the air, and at sea after several years in which only a few hundred participated. They’ll be operating from all the nine bases to which the Americans now have regular access, as well as from both Subic and Clark and other bases.

Both Philippine and American officials were delighted by renewal of large-scale war games under a president whose father, Ferdinand Marcos, was overthrown after 18 years as leader in the People Power Revolution of 1986. Bongbong was with his father, his mother, Imelda, and his two sisters on an American Air Force plane, loaded with gold bars and jewelry, that flew them to Hawaii from Clark.

The exercises, known as Balikatan, the Tagalog word for shoulder-to-shoulder, increase “our ability to work together effectively and efficiently in response to various crisis situations,” Colonel Medel Aguilar of the Philippines said in the announcement by the American embassy at Manila. Troops from both countries, he said, would coordinate on “tactics, techniques, and procedures across a wide range of military operations.”

An American lieutenant colonel, Daniel Huvane, said Balikatan “provides unparalleled opportunities to demonstrate the strength and readiness of the Philippine-U.S. security alliance.” Exercises like Balikatan, he said, “are important investments in our ability to work together across the spectrum of military operations, respond to crises, support the people of the Philippines, and accomplish our shared missions.”

Neither American nor Philippine officers said a word about the need to build strength against Chinese forces in both the South China Sea and the seas around Taiwan. The Chinese, though, had plenty to say. 

“Even if the US expands new military bases in the Philippines, the impact will be limited, at least not as significant as what the US expects in countering China,” the Global Times, published by China’s party paper, People’s Daily, opined. “Americans are now trying their best to create an illusion of a military coalition in Asia.”

Manila, the article said, “understands that offering the US more military bases and strengthening its defense capabilities will inevitably come at a certain cost” and “will not easily be lured” into jumping on the U.S. “chariot.”