WASHINGTON—Defense Department officer in charge Carlito Galvez and US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Wednesday established the bilateral defense guidelines between the two countries to modernize the alliance cooperation "for a free and open Indo-Pacific region." According to a fact sheet from the US Department of Defense, the guidelines "reaffirmed that an armed attack in the Pacific, including anywhere in the South China Sea, on either of their aircraft or armed forces – which includes their Coast Guards – would invoke mutual defense commitments under the 1951 PH-US Mutual Defense Treaty."