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Philippines’ Marcos tells Blinken Pelosi’s Taiwan trip did not raise ‘intensity’ of US-China tensions
- The president told US Secretary of State during talks in Manila that the speaker’s visit showed the existing ‘intensity’ of a situation that was already volatile
- Blinken assured Marcos Washington would honour its commitments to their decades-old joint defence pact
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The volatile geopolitical situation and fallout from US House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan underlines the importance of the US-Philippines relationship, President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr said on Saturday.
Marcos, meeting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the presidential palace in Manila, said his visit was timely, but he believed Pelosi’s trip “did not raise the intensity” of a situation that was already volatile.
Blinken is the highest-ranking US official to travel to the Philippines since the inauguration of Marcos, the son of the late strongman who Washington helped flee into exile in Hawaii after a 1986 “people power” uprising.
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He assured Marcos the United States would honour its commitments to their decades-old joint defence pact.
“The alliance is strong and I believe can grow even stronger,” Blinken told Marcos.
“We are committed to the mutual defence treaty we are committed to working with the Philippines on shared challenges.”
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