Melbourne: Philippine Foreign Minister Enrique Manalo said on Monday that his country wants to solve maritime disputes with China peacefully — but delivered a simple message to Beijing: “stop harassing us.”
Speaking on the sidelines of an ASEAN-Australia summit in Melbourne, Manalo acknowledged China’s anger at his government’s policy of publicizing maneuvers in contested maritime territory.
“If you would stop harassing us and, and perhaps performing other actions, there wouldn’t be any news to report,” he said.
The statement was issued a day after the Chinese Embassy in Manila urged Romualdez to stop spreading erroneous “China threat.”
China was miffed by the ambassador’s earlier remark that the “real flashpoint” in the region would be in the West Philippine Sea and not in the Taiwan Strait, adding that skirmishes in the area sometimes made President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. lose sleep.
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At the sidelines of the general membership meeting of the Consular Corps of the Philippines last February 28, Romualdez also said that the P1.7 trillion the US will invest in Manila would “counter any economic coercion from China.”
“It is deplorable that the said individual, in ignorance of basic facts, again used the South China Sea issue to hype up and launch a baseless accusation and malicious smear campaign against China,” the Chinese embassy said, referring to Romualdez.
“We urge the said individual to stop spreading erroneous ‘China threat’ and ‘Sinophobia’ remarks, refrain from serving as mouthpiece for another country and do more for the benefit of his own people and his country’s relations with China instead,” it added.
The embassy also said that China “is the Philippines’ largest trading partner and one of its major investment sources.”
It said that China has always been “committed to properly handling the South China Sea disputes with relevant parties through dialogue and consultation, while firmly safeguarding its territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests.”
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