China is hoping for talks with the Philippines on the South China Sea issue at an early date, an official said on Wednesday.
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“Very near. Within the year maybe”, Duterte told reporters when asked when the Sino-Philippine formal talks would commence.
Last month, an global arbitral tribunal issued a ruling invalidating China’s historical claims in the South China Sea in a territorial case filed by the Philippines against Beijing in 2013.
Duterte said the Philippines had not “insisted” on the judgement, but signaled that stance would change.
“I guarantee to them, if you are the ones who enter here, it will be bloody and we will not give it to them easily”.
Duterte sent ex-president Fidel Ramos to Hong Kong for an ice-breaking meeting this month with Fu Ying, chair of the foreign affairs committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s communist-controlled legislature. Duterte has not pressed for Chinese compliance and does not plan to raise the decision at an annual summit of Southeast Asian leaders with their Chinese counterpart in Laos next month.
However, he also insisted that United Nations should not interfere in the matters of the Philippines. He has been seeking talks with China on the long-unresolved conflict.
“We will not raise hell now because of the judgment, but there will come a time that we have to do some reckoning about this”, Duterte said.
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Duterte said Beijing’s condition that Manila will not use the worldwide court ruling in the bilateral talks was “impossible”, saying the negotiators will bring it up when they come face-to-face with Chinese officials. Beijing’s territorial claims to the Spratly Islands, known as Nansha Islands in China, which are believed to be rich in oil and gas reserves, run counter to those of the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, Brunei and Vietnam.
