Beijing is stepping up pressure on Manila to concede its sovereign rights in the South China Sea, Philippine Secretary of National Defense Gilberto Teodoro said yesterday after meeting his Australian counterpart, Richard Marles, in Canberra.
The fifth such meeting since August last year reflects growing security ties between the countries, which have both voiced concern about Chinese activity in areas of the busy waterway claimed by Taiwan, the Philippines and other Southeast Asian nations.
“What we see is an increasing demand by Beijing for us to concede our sovereign rights in the area,” Teodoro said after meeting Marles, adding that the Philippines was a “victim of Chinese aggression.”
Photo: EPA-EFE
The two countries signed a strategic partnership in September last year before holding their first joint sea and air patrols in the South China Sea months later. This year, the Philippines also joined war games in Australia for the first time.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Lin Jian (林劍) said Beijing has taken measures to assert its rights after the Philippines “infringed first.”
“If the Philippines no longer infringes and provokes, there will be no more escalation of the maritime situation,” he told a press briefing.
China and the Philippines have sparred repeatedly this year over disputed areas of the South China Sea, including the Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島).
On Sunday, China said it defined a baseline of “territorial waters” around the shoal in response to Philippine approval of two laws defining its sea lanes and maritime zones to bolster its territorial claims around the South China Sea.
Manila’s National Maritime Council yesterday said it objected to China’s establishment of baselines and accused Beijing of breaching its sovereignty.
“The establishment of the baselines by China around the shoal is a continuation of its 2012 illegal seizure of the shoal, which the Philippines continues to strongly oppose,” it said in a statement.
In related news, Teodoro said he did not expect US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration would demand that Manila pay more for military protection because both allies faced the shared threat of China.
Asked if Trump would expect the Philippines, like Taiwan, to pay for US protection, Teodoro replied: “I really don’t expect some sort of a statement from Mr Trump, hopefully not.”
“I really don’t have any preconditions or any assumptions as to what will be the outcome of this administration, except on what we are working on — on institutional ties,” he said.
“We have an interest, both the United States and the Philippines, in ensuring that our partnership continues because — not totally, but principally — ... of shared threats. And that is undoubtedly the overreach and the aggressive and illegal activities of China,” he said.
Additional reporting by AP
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
RSS