The president of the Philippines expressed concern on Tuesday about what he called the “hot to cold” messages from China in the protracted territorial disputes with his country — and others in the region — over areas of the South China Sea.
In an interview, the president, Benigno S. Aquino III, who was visiting to attend a United Nations summit meeting on climate change, made it clear that the territorial disputes had created a tense backdrop to the relationship between the Philippines and China and a geopolitical point of contention that also has entangled the United States, an ally of the Philippines.
China and the Philippines have been locked in a standoff over an area of the South China Sea near the Philippines coast called Scarborough Shoal for more than two years. In May, they became embroiled in another dispute over part of the Spratly Islands known as Johnson South Reef. The Philippines has filed a case against China with a United Nations tribunal, demanding arbitration of territorial disagreements.
Increasingly assertive about these claims, China has also engaged in maritime disputes with Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam in different parts of the South China Sea, and with Japan over islands in the East China Sea.
The Chinese have sought one-on-one talks with the Philippines to resolve the dispute, but Mr. Aquino has rejected that approach — there are at least four countries with overlapping claims in the Spratlys alone, he said, so it makes no sense for two of the countries to negotiate with each other.
“We cannot agree to bilateral talks to solve the problem, because we think the problem is multilateral,” he said. “A multilateral problem has to be settled multilaterally.”
He described the relationship with China as confusing at times. While trade between the two nations continues to grow, he said, a travel advisory is in force in China discouraging visits to the Philippines. Other mixed messages recur as well. “There was a time when they were stopping our exports of bananas,” Mr. Aquino said.
“At the end of the day, it goes from hot to cold, sometimes they’re very conciliatory, sometimes they make very provocative statements,” he said.
“We will confess we don’t understand some of the messages sometimes. We’re not sure.”
China has contended that ancient maritime maps from dynasties past support its claim on the Scarborough Shoal.
This month, the Philippines sought to rebut that claim by producing its own maps, some dating to the 12th century, showing that China had no ownership claim on islands below its southernmost region, Hainan, Philippine newspapers reported.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.