Philippines has no intention of forging military alliance with China, Foreign Minister Yasay says

While Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has been vocal about forging closer ties with China following his criticism of the United States, his country’s long-time ally, forging a military alliance with the world’s No. 2 economic power is not going to happen, his top diplomat said on Thursday.

“When we would like to foster closer relationship with China, we will not certainly engage in any alliance with China from a military viewpoint because that has never been the intention of the president,” Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay said before a hearing at the Senate.

“The president, on many occasions, has said categorically that he will only have one military alliance, and our only ally in that respect is the United States,” Yasay said.

The Philippines has an existing Mutual Defence Treaty with the United States signed in 1951, on which two other key pacts, the Visiting Forces Agreement of 1998 and the Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement of 2014, are based.

Duterte said the Philippines can always go to China and Russia, a pronouncement explained by administration officials as an expression of his intent to chart an independent foreign policy and at the same time, opening up the Philippines to other potential allies.

According to Yasay, Duterte’s main objective of visiting China later this month is to strengthen and promote other aspects of the two countries’ relationship besides a territorial dispute in the South China Sea.