CHINA -- President Rodrigo Duterte said he would not talk about the disputes on the contested South China Sea, unless Chinese President Xi Jinping raises the issue in their bilateral discussions on Thursday.
The President made this statement in a press conference held in China on Wednesday night.
Duterte is scheduled to have a bilateral meeting with Xi at about 11:30 a.m.
He believes that the meeting with Xi "is not the right forum" to raise the issue on the maritime dispute as he does not want to ruin the opportunity to further boost the relationship between the two countries.
But should Xi brings up the issue, Duterte said he would respond to him in a courteous manner.
“If he mentions it in passing, I will just say, ‘Mr. President, I came here for a visit. I do not want to make hard impositions. I do not want to ask you to do it now because there will be a time when we shall be doing it,’” Duterte said.
“But I have to be courteous and I have to wait for your President to mention it in passing for me to respond. It is in the broader outlines of talks that we have agreed. But as a matter of courtesy and the oriental way, you’d always wait because I am a visitor here,” he added.
He said there is a proper time to discuss the sovereignty claims on the South China Sea.
“[Raising the SouthChina Sea issue now] is not the time to do it. Because after all, I did not come here to agree to talk about the China Sea. And you can say it can take a back seat? Of course, it has to take a back seat. The question again is, there’ll be a time that you have to talk about it? Of course, there will be a time,” the President said.
“There will come a time we will have to talk about it and the arbitral judgment is in a piece of paper with four corners. And maybe up by that time, I would say, you know, we have to talk now and might the issues will not go out of what is being stated.”
Duterte earlier said that his administration would not compel the Chinese government to immediately settle the territorial row, noting that it would only result to war.
He had said that the Philippine government will also avoid “adversarial or insistent” position with regard to the issue.
As for the fishing rights of Filipinos, Duterte said he would let Xi to decide whether they would permit the Filipino fishermen to go to Panatag Shoal.
“In the matter of fishing rights, I leave it to China to decide. We’ll be talking about it,” he said. (Sunnex)