Philippine government indicates it would be willing to share South China Sea resources with Beijing
President Duterte has adopted more conciliatory approach to China than his predecessor
The Philippines is willing to share natural resources with Beijing in contested South China Sea areas even if it wins a legal challenge next week, Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay said on Friday.
Yasay said President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration hoped to quickly begin direct talks with China following Tuesday’s verdict, with the negotiations to cover jointly exploiting natural gas reserves and fishing grounds within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.
“We can even have the objective of seeing how we can jointly explore this territory: how we can utilise and benefit mutually from the utilisation of the resources in this exclusive economic zone where claims are overlapping,” Yasay said.
The Philippines, under Benigno Aquino’s previous administration, filed in 2013 a legal challenge with a UN-backed tribunal in The Hague contesting China’s claims to nearly all of the strategically vital sea.
China’s claims reach almost to the coasts of the Philippines and some other Southeast Asian nations, and it has in recent years built giant artificial islands in the disputed areas to enforce what it says are its indisputable sovereign rights.