President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. emphasized the need to forge stronger alliances and continue “developing cooperation” with different countries to address rising tensions in Taiwan.
In a conference hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC, Marcos described the situation on the island as “new,” which requires solutions to “also be new and that is why we are now formulating those partnerships between all the different countries.”
“We are continuing to strengthen our cooperation and partnership with other countries, not just our neighboring countries, but also countries that we rarely interact with because we didn’t see the need to establish partnerships,” Marcos said.
He said the Philippines’ arrangements and alliances with other countries should be fixed so that they conform to the “needs of the day.”
“Not just Australia, not just the United States, also South Korea, also Japan, all of the ASEAN member states, and I think we can continue to… do that and I know that the countries… are already of the same mind,” he added.
Marcos said his campaign message of unity is beginning to extend not only to the local situation in the Philippines but also on the international scale.
“They, too, are looking for companions to face the new world together,” he said.
The President also reiterated his administration’s foreign policy that “the Philippines shall continue to be a friend to all and an enemy of none.”
In a question-and-answer session, the President responded with an outright “no” when asked if the US has asked that Filipino soldiers be deployed to Taiwan if tensions escalate.
“No. The short answer is no,” President Marcos said.
The President said the US also never asked for the sites under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) to be used as staging points for any attacks against other nations. Vince Lopez
“To be fair, the United States has never brought up the possibility that we will use, that the United States will use the EDCA sites as staging areas for any offensive actions against any countries,” the President said.
“The United States has never said that this is a possibility and we’ve also made it clear on our end that this is not the purpose of those sites, and this is not the way that they will be used,” he added.
The President also said he personally guaranteed to Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, who recently visited Malacañang, that these sites would not be used as military bases that will be used to attack other countries.
“No, these are not intended to be military bases to attack, to move against anyone, any country, not China, not any country,” he said.
President Marcos and United States President Joe Biden have expressed the need to maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait in a joint statement after meeting at the White House, saying it was an indispensable element of global security and prosperity.
