Leaders of the United States, Japan and the Philippines met at the White House on Thursday. The three countries share deep distrust over China's growing assertiveness in the Asia Pacific and the Asian giant's territorial claims.

US President Joe Biden warned that any attack against Philippine forces in the South China Sea would be grounds for applying the mutual defense treaty between Washington and Manila signed in 1951. The leaders planned to announce joint patrols of their coast guard services in the Indo-Pacific region. The US Coast Guard will also admit members of the Philippine and Japanese corps ships to these training, according to senior US officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. The trilateral meetings are part of Biden's Administration's intense contacts for the development of a network of economic and security alliances in Indo- Pacific with which to respond to the rise of China, the officials said. The Asian giant claims sovereignty over almost all of the waters and maintains a bitter territorial dispute with the archipelago, which has resolutely aligned itself with Washington since Marcos came to power.