Manila, March 23: Chinese diplomats expressed their strong opposition to an expanded United States military presence in the Philippines in closed-door talks with their Filipino counterparts on Thursday in Manila, a Filipino official said, underscoring the intense US-China rivalry in the region.
The Philippine official, who attended the meeting, told The Associated Press about China’s intense objections on condition of anonymity for lack of authority to discuss what transpired at the start of the two-day talks.
The Filipino diplomats responded by saying the decision to allow an expanded American military presence was in their national interest and would boost Philippine capability to respond to natural disasters, the official said, suggesting it was not aimed at China.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Sun Weidong and Philippine Foreign Undersecretary Theresa Lazaro led the talks aimed at assessing overall relations between the two sides amid thorny issues, including Beijing’s alarm over a Philippine decision to allow the US military to expand its presence to a northern region facing the Taiwan Strait and escalating spats in the South China Sea.
The discussions on Friday will focus on the long-seething territorial spats in the disputed waterway, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila.
The back-to-back meetings are the first under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who took office in June. He met Chinese President Xi Jinping in a state visit to Beijing in January, where both agreed to expand ties, pursue talks on potential joint oil and gas explorations and manage territorial disputes amicably.
In early February, the Marcos administration announced it would allow rotating batches of American forces to indefinitely station in four more Philippine military camps. Those are in addition to five local bases earlier designated under a 2014 defence pact between the longtime treaty allies.
Marcos said on Wednesday the four new military sites would include areas in the northern Philippines. That location has infuriated Chinese officials because it would provide US forces a staging ground close to southern China and Taiwan.
The Americans would also have access to military areas on the western Philippine island province of Palawan, Marcos said. (AP)
