The Philippines’ top diplomat yesterday unambiguously told Beijing where to go, as the government said Chinese vessels were still illegally lingering in the disputed South China Sea.
“China, my friend, how politely can I put it? Let me see... O... GET THE FUCK OUT,” Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs Teodoro Locsin wrote on Twitter.
The latest spat between Manila and Beijing over the resource-rich waters — which China claims almost entirely — flared up in March after hundreds of Chinese boats were spotted inside the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.
Photo: EPA-EFE
China has refused repeated calls from the Philippines to withdraw the boats, and tensions have intensified as Manila steps up maritime patrols in the area.
Locsin frequently uses strong language on Twitter and defended his latest outburst by saying: “Usual suave diplomatic speak gets nothing done.”
He also likened China to “an ugly oaf forcing your attentions on a handsome guy who wants to be a friend.”
The order came as the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs accused China’s coast guard of “belligerent actions” against Philippine boats involved in maritime drills near the contested Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島), which is also claimed by Taiwan.
China-controlled Scarborough is one of the region’s richest fishing grounds and a flashpoint between Manila and Beijing, which have rival claims.
The department said it has lodged a diplomatic protest over the Chinese vessels’ actions toward the Southeast Asian country’s coast guard during patrols and training exercises near the reef last month.
The department said the presence of the Chinese boats was a “blatant infringement of Philippine sovereignty.”
A flight test of a hypersonic missile system in Hawaii on Wednesday ended in failure due to a problem that occurred after ignition, the US Department of Defense said, delivering a fresh blow to a program that has experienced stumbles. It did not provide details of what took place in the test, but said in an e-mailed statement that “the department remains confident that it is on track to field offensive and defensive hypersonic capabilities on target dates beginning in the early 2020s.” “An anomaly occurred following ignition of the test asset,” Pentagon spokesman US Navy Lieutenant Commander Tim Gorman said in
China is racing to quash a new COVID-19 flareup that risks spilling over into one of its most economically significant regions, raising the specter of disruptions that could roil global supply chains for solar panels, medicines and semiconductors. Infections have surged in Si County in the eastern province of Anhui, with officials reporting 287 cases for Sunday and nearly 1,000 since late last week. Authorities locked down Si and a neighboring county late last week to try and stop the virus from spreading to Jiangsu Province, the second-biggest contributor to China’s economic output and a globally important manufacturing hub for the
OPPOSITION PROTESTS: Many people in Myanmar suspect China of supporting the military takeover, while Beijing has refused to condemn last year’s army power grab China’s top diplomat on Saturday arrived on his first visit to Myanmar since the military seized power last year to attend a regional meeting that the Burmese government said was a recognition of its legitimacy and opponents protested as a violation of peace efforts. Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) is to join counterparts from Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam in a meeting of the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation group in the central city of Bagan, a UNESCO World Heritage site. The grouping is a Chinese-led initiative that includes the countries of the Mekong Delta, a potential source of regional tensions
CERN UPGRADES: ompared with the collider’s first run that discovered the Higgs boson in 2012, this time around there would be 20 times more collisions Ten years after it discovered the Higgs boson, the Large Hadron Collider is about to start smashing protons together at unprecedented energy levels in its quest to reveal more secrets about how the universe works. The world’s largest and most powerful particle collider started back up in April after a three-year break for upgrades in preparation for its third run. From today it will run around the clock for nearly four years at a record energy of 13.6 trillion electronvolts, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) announced at a news conference last week. It is to send two beams of protons