Manila's new ambassador to China is career diplomat Erlinda Basilio, 68

The Philippines' new ambassador to China will be Foreign Undersecretary Erlinda Basilio, who has been instrumental in pushing for a multilateral approach to resolving territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

Philippine President Benigno Aquino announced his choice yesterday, saying her "wealth of experience, and given that she's already an undersecretary … sends a signal how important our relations are with China".

Basilio, 68, is the foreign undersecretary for policy who met Deputy Foreign Minister Fu Ying in Manila two months ago, signalling a slight thawing of relations between the two countries.

Three months before that, however, the presidential palace in Manila used Basilio to launch a media blitz telling the public why Cambodia had scuttled the drafting of a joint communiqué to close the 45th Asean Ministerial Meeting in Phnom Penh. The Philippines had wanted the communiqué to mention a proposed code of conduct on the South China Sea to be signed with China.

Basilio, who was present at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations meeting, told one Philippine television station that Cambodia acted the way it did because "much money was poured and promised" by China to the host. "They [China] provided a maritime co-operation fund, construction fund, a connectivity fund and various other things."

The palace also released an article bearing Basilio's byline which she said was intended "to correct the grave misimpressions" being spread about the Philippines. In it, she denied that Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario had denounced China's "duplicity and intimidation" during the Asean meeting.

She also stressed that the Philippines had a "three-track approach to advance its interests in the West Philippine Sea [as Manila calls the South China Sea]" - political, diplomatic and legal. "Asean is part of the political track," she wrote.