Days before his online bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday said Manila and Beijing “do not have any quarrel” despite fresh incursions in the West Philippine Sea.
“The Philippines and China, we do not have any quarrel,” Duterte told Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Huang Xilian during the inauguration of the China-funded Binondo-Intramuros Bridge in Manila.
“We can talk about the Spratly Islands and probably the fishing rights of my countrymen. Plain talk, nothing else,” the President added.
The Philippine Coast Guard last month accused its Chinese counterpart of steering one of its ships within meters of a Filipino patrol boat near the Scarborough Shoal.
On Tuesday, Defense chief Delfin Lorenzana also disclosed that a Chinese navy vessel was observing the conduct of war games between Filipino and American soldiers in Philippine waters earlier this year.
“What this vessel did was monitor our military exercise with the US navy. It conducted surveillance,” Lorenzana said, adding that this prompted Manila to file a diplomatic protest against Beijing.
“So, we protested. They can’t just observe us within our territorial waters,” he said.
According to the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Chinese vessel entered Philippine waters “without permission” from January 29 to February 1, 2022, reaching the waters of Palawan’s Cuyo Group of Islands and Apo Island in Mindoro.
Philippine Navy vessel BRP Antonio Luna (FF-151) challenged PLAN 792, which claimed that it was exercising innocent passage.
China has ignored a 2016 ruling by the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration junking its historical claim to the area.
Meanwhile, a day after Duterte and Xi’s virtual meeting, Japan and the Philippines will hold their first ministerial security talks on Saturday in Tokyo to enhance cooperation in countering China’s increasing maritime assertiveness in the South and East China seas, Japan’s Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi said.
The Department of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday said the defense and foreign ministers of the Philippines and Japan will hold an inaugural meeting in Tokyo on April 9 purportedly to discuss the growing complexity of regional and international security concerns.
Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. and Lorenzana will be meeting with their Japanese counterparts to tackle how both countries can work together amid the growing complexity of the regional and international security environment.
In a statement, the DFA stressed that the summit will lay the groundwork for the security relationship between the two countries over the next decade.
“The 2+2 is the next logical progression in the deepening policy and security cooperation between the two countries and is envisioned to be a key component in further strengthening the decade-old PH-Japan Strategic Partnership,” the DFA said.
“The close ties between the two countries for six decades now continue to expand to various areas of cooperation and have resulted in the improvement of the Philippines’ maritime law enforcement capabilities, increased maritime domain awareness, and enhanced counterterrorism and Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) capabilities, among other areas,” it added.
Besides the United States, the DFA said Japan is the second country with which the Philippines has a similar 2+2 mechanism.
President Rodrigo Duterte and Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio agreed on such a mechanism during their tele-summit in November last year.