WASHINGTON — President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. on Thursday (US time) stated the Philippines will proceed to stability its relations with China whereas defending its sovereignty, noting that disengagement with Beijing just isn’t an possibility.
During a question-and-answer session on the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on the final day of his official US go to, Marcos was requested how Manila will keep a secure relationship with Beijing whereas defending its sovereignty amid continued harassment within the South China Sea.
In response, Marcos stated, “Well, in the same way that we maintain our relationship with the US, we constantly consult with our allies and partners. We constantly keep our lines of communications open.”
He reiterated the significance of getting direct communication with Chinese President Xi Jinping in addition to different vital Chinese officers to keep away from misunderstandings on numerous points.
“I suggested that we institute a system wherein we have a direct contact, one president to the other, and in that way, no matter if I cannot speak for example to President Xi himself, I have someone that I can pick up the phone and call who I know and I have confidence in making my message to the President. And this works, of course, both ways,” Marcos stated.
“If the President of the People’s Republic would like a message to arrive to me then we have a system in place, we are — we have a system in place to achieve that and we are still working on it, our Secretary of Foreign Affairs is working on the details of that — well I refer to it as a hotline really,” he added.
“And hopefully that soon, we will have that in place, we will have that functioning and in that way — disengagement is really not an option.”
His response got here after the incident in Spratly Islands the place a Filipino and a Chinese vessel practically crashed.
Marcos additionally stated the Philippines would keep its overseas coverage of being “a friend to all and enemy to none” as he cited the importance of partaking with ASEAN member-states and different Asian nations.
“Our foreign policy is almost simplistic when I describe it because our foreign policy is based on the pursuit of peace, our foreign policy is based on the promotion of our national interest,” he stated.
“That seems the only way because we certainly do not want to provoke a more serious situation than it is already now. We certainly do not want to cause an incident by misjudgment, by mistake, that will elevate the conflict from what it is now to a higher level.” —KBK, GMA Integrated News
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
