BEIJING: Philippine Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano was in Beijing on Wednesday for talks on possible joint development projects in the South China Sea amid signs of an easing of tensions in the disputed waterway.
Cayetano was scheduled to meet with his counterpart Wang Yi later in the afternoon and on Friday with newly-appointed Vice President Wang Qishan, a close ally of President Xi Jinping.
China and the Philippines have long tussled over islands and reefs in the South China Sea and since taking office in 2013, Xi has taken a hard line on issues of Chinese sovereignty.
Kicking off his second five-year term on Tuesday, Xi declared in a fervently nationalistic address to the ceremonial legislature that China would never cede “one inch” of its territory.
China rejected an international tribunal’s 2016 ruling invalidating much of its claim to virtually the entire South China Sea in a case brought by the Philippines.
Prior to his Tuesday departure, Cayetano said the sides would discuss “broad areas of collaboration,” but gave no specifics, according to news website Rappler. He said the territorial dispute would be discussed “in the context of how we can improve the situation,” and that the sides were trying to find a legal framework acceptable to both that would allow joint exploration even as they continued to disagree.
Cayetano said talks would also touch on agricultural exports, investment in infrastructure and operations against Muslim extremists allied with the Daesh group in the southern Philippines, Rappler reported.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterto has pushed for closer relations with Beijing, downplaying the dispute over territory claimed by both sides and courting Chinese aid and investment. For its part, China has eased pressure on Philippine fishermen and is working with the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to reach a code of conduct to avoid frictions while operating in the area where an estimated $5 trillion in international trade passes annually.
Along with rich but diminishing fishing stocks, the South China Sea is believed to hold deposits of oil, gas and other resources.
China, Philippines discuss joint South China Sea projects
China, Philippines discuss joint South China Sea projects
Russia says the West should stop claiming Moscow and Beijing threaten Greenland
- “First they came up with the idea that there were some aggressors,” Zakharova said
- “We stand in solidarity with China’s position”
MOSCOW: Russia said on Thursday that its was unacceptable for the West to keep claiming that Russia and China threatened Greenland, and said the crisis over the territory showed the inconsistency of the West’s implementation of the so-called “rules-based” order.
“First they came up with the idea that there were some aggressors, and then that they were ready to protect someone from these aggressors,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said of the West’s actions on Greenland.
The current situation, she said, “demonstrates with particular acuteness the inconsistency of the so-called ‘rules-based world order’ being built by the West,” Zakharova said.
“We stand in solidarity with China’s position on the unacceptability of references to certain activity of Russia and China around Greenland as a reason for the current escalation,” Zakharova said.
