Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Huang Xilian on Tuesday said China does not oppose Manila’s strengthened military cooperation with the United States amid disputes over the South China Sea.
Huang stressed that China “has no objection” with regard to the Philippine relations with other countries, as long as the partnership is not “directed against China.”
The Chinese diplomat made the statement in a forum in Quezon City where he talked about the strengthened military cooperation between the Philippines and the US through the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) that allows US forces to conduct activities on agreed locations inside Philippine military bases.
When asked to comment on the South China Sea issue between China and the Philippines, Huang said he was “very impressed” by how President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. handled both countries’ differences.
The Chinese envoy admitted that Marcos Jr.’s view was “very similar to the Chinese view and Chinese position.”
“We should try to create a good environment for us to handle the differences, and I believe that we should also seek to settle and manage our differences through direct friendly consultations and dialogue,” he said.
Meanwhile, Huang said the Philippines, like China, should depend on modernization to achieve economic development and social progress.
With the Philippines and China both developing countries in Asia, Huang said the two countries must take advantage of the current global development, which started to shift in the region.
According to Huang, the shift was due to the joint efforts of the Asian countries to make the region “a highland of development and a hot spot for cooperation.”
“As many insightful people in the Philippines have realized, we are currently living in the ‘Asian Century,’ and the focus of global economic development has shifted to Asia,” he said.
He added that it only proved that the Philippine future “is deeply rooted in its own national construction and development, in the surrounding environment of good neighborliness and friendship, and in the Asian family of peace, stability, and common prosperity.”
Currently, Huang said he believes the Philippines already entered a new stage of development while it also started facing new strategic choices.
“Experience tells us that development is of overriding importance and the key to solving all problems,” he said.
With China’s modernization path, Huang said his country is willingness to help the Philippines achieve its own goals in terms of development.
Chinese modernization, for China, “is the modernization of a huge population, of common prosperity for all, of material and cultural-ethical advancement, of harmony between humanity and nature,
and of peaceful development,” he explained.
The Chinese diplomat believed that “the express train of Chinese modernization will surely bring” more opportunities to deeply broaden the mutual cooperation between China and the Philippines as well as to “provide new powerful momentum for the overall development of China and the Philippines.”
“We have reason to believe that Chinese modernization will create new opportunities for the new “Golden Era” of China-Philippines relations,” he pointed out.