Upset that Chinese vessels have been mobbing the main Philippine-occupied island in the South China Sea, Rodrigo Duterte rasped at China to “lay off”
president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, once gushed about his Chinese counterpart, “I just simply love Xi Jinping”. But the infatuation has faded. Upset that Chinese vessels have been mobbing the main Philippine-occupied island in the South China Sea, Mr Duterte rasped at China to “lay off”, and threatened an aggressive response.
For more than three months a flotilla of fishing vessels from China’s maritime militia has been swarming around Philippine-occupied Thitu, an island in the Spratly archipelago which is home both to a small military base and 200-odd civilians . The manoeuvres appear to be a response to Philippine construction work on the island, to repair the airstrip and build a beaching ramp for small craft.Mr Duterte has responded with characteristic bluster. “I have soldiers there,” he warned the Chinese.
Since the 1990s China has been occupying reefs and rocks in the South China Sea claimed by the Philippines and other littoral countries, and building on them. In 2012, after the Philippine navy tried to arrest some Chinese fishermen near Scarborough Shoal, which both China and the Philippines claim, Chinese vessels have patrolled the surrounding waters and at times turned away Philippine fishermen. The Philippines asked an international tribunal to adjudicate.
Jingoism sells well in the Philippines , and in the run-up to his election Mr Duterte threatened to jump on a jet ski and defend the Philippines’ claim to Scarborough Shoal single-handedly. But once in office, he opted instead to cosy up to China. He has kept quiet about the tribunal’s ruling, which Chinese leaders had rejected. China, in turn, has pledged big investments in roads, ports and railways around the Philippines.
But mid-term elections are nearing. The opposition has been cudgelling Mr Duterte for selling out to China. Not much of the promised investment has materialised. And now the Chinese are testing boundaries around Thitu. Small wonder, then, that Mr Duterte, who is as mercurial as he is expressive, appears to have had a change of heart. But as even he acknowledges, the Philippines would lose a war with China, so it would be foolish to start one.
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