Philippines’ Teodoro Locsin says Beijing’s South China Sea code is like ‘a manual for feeding a dragon in your living room’

Locsin described the code of conduct sought by Beijing to address South China Sea dispute as ‘implicit recognition of Chinese hegemony’

He also emphasised Manila’s relationship with the US, which he called ‘the eternal engine of endeavour and invention’

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Philippine Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jnr at a foreign ministers' meeting of Australia and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Bangkok in August. Photo: AP

Published: 10:44am, 25 Sep 2019Updated: 1:44pm, 12 Dec 2019

Philippine foreign secretary Teodoro Locsin Jnr on Tuesday described China as a “hegemon” in the way it seeks to deal with its neighbours in the South China Sea and expressed support for continued US presence in the region.

Beijing seeks a code of conduct for the South China Sea that “is all about how Southeast Asia and China will engage with each other and no one else”, Locsin told an Asia Society event in New York.

“[Such an agreement would be] implicit recognition of Chinese hegemony,” he said. “In short, a manual for living with a hegemon or the care and feeding of a dragon in your living room.”

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte courted controversy earlier this month when he said he would ignore a 2016 UN arbitration on the two countries’ competing claims in the South China Sea, which ruled in Manila’s favour and backed its claims to an exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

Duterte was willing to make the concession to China to advance joint offshore oil and gas exploration with Beijing in the region.

The Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) refused to recognise the “nine-dash line” Beijing invokes to claim most of the South China Sea – including the Reed Bank, an undersea feature within the Philippine EEZ – as its sovereign territory. Beijing has never accepted the PCA ruling.