Marcos says US presence crucial to regional peace
President Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos Jr. delivers a speech during the 21st Shangri-La Dialogue summit in Singapore on May 31, 2024. AFP)
‘Illegal, coercive, aggressive’
Manila and Beijing have a long history of maritime territorial disputes, but tensions have worsened under Marcos. In an effort to win international backing for its stance, Manila has published images of incidents involving Chinese and Philippine vessels, and invited local and foreign media on its patrol boats. China Coast Guard vessels have used water cannon against Philippine boats multiple times in the contested waters, where there have also been collisions that injured several Filipino troops. Beijing defends its actions as “legitimate” and “necessary law enforcement measures” in response to Philippine vessels that it says have illegally entered its territorial waters. China claims almost the entire waterway, brushing off rival claims from other countries, including the Philippines, and ignoring an international ruling that its claims have no legal basis. To assert its stance, Beijing deploys coast guard and other boats to patrol the waters and has turned several reefs into artificial islands that it has militarized. Many of the confrontations between Chinese and Philippine vessels have happened near Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratly Islands. The reef, where a handful of Filipino troops are garrisoned on a grounded navy vessel, is about 200 kilometres (120 miles) from the western Philippine island of Palawan, and more than 1,000 kilometres from China’s nearest major landmass, Hainan island. “Illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive actions continue to violate our sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdictions,” Marcos said Friday. “I do not intend to yield,” he said. “Filipinos do not yield”.
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