Philippines’ Marcos Jr. Heads to China Amid Sea Disputes – The Diplomat

ASEAN Beat | Diplomacy | Southeast Asia

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. flew to China on Tuesday for a three-day state go to, saying he seems to be ahead to his assembly with Chinese language chief Xi Jinping as they work to spice up bilateral ties.

“As I depart for Beijing, I shall be opening a brand new chapter in our complete, strategic cooperation with China,” he instructed officers and diplomats, together with the Chinese language ambassador, previous to boarding his flight from an air base within the capital.

“I look ahead to my assembly with President Xi as we work in direction of shifting the trajectory of our relationships to a better gear that will hopefully convey quite a few prospects and plentiful alternatives for peace and growth to the peoples of each our nations,” he added.

Alluding to the 2 nations’ territorial dispute within the South China Sea, he stated he seems to be ahead to discussing bilateral and regional political and safety points.

“The problems between our two nations are issues that don’t belong between two pals reminiscent of Philippines and China,” he added. “We’ll search to resolve these points to mutual advantage of our two nations.”

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China claims nearly the whole South China Sea and has ignored a 2016 ruling by a tribunal in The Hague that invalidated Beijing’s claims to the waterway. The case was introduced by the Philippines, which says China has since developed disputed reefs into synthetic islands with airplane runways and different buildings in order that they now resemble ahead army bases.

Most not too long ago, a Filipino army commander reported that the Chinese language coast guard forcibly seized Chinese language rocket particles that Filipino navy personnel had retrieved within the South China Sea final month.

China denied the forcible seizure. Marcos stated he would search additional clarification on his go to to Beijing.

Accompanied by an enormous enterprise delegation, Marcos stated they’ll search cooperation in numerous areas together with agriculture, power, infrastructure, commerce and investments, and people-to-people exchanges. He stated they anticipate to signal greater than 10 key bilateral agreements through the go to.

China accounts for 20 p.c of the Philippines’ overseas commerce and can also be a significant supply of overseas direct funding.