Xi Jinping's Manila visit: South China Sea dispute and Chinese investment deals expected to spark protests
- Despite a thaw in relations under Rodrigo Duterte, Beijing’s stance on South China Sea is expected to spark protests during Chinese president’s visit
- Two sides expected to announce major infrastructure deals which have raised concerns over environmental impact
In a dimly lit building in Quezon City, a woman was hunched over the ground working on several brightly painted protest signs, in preparation for Chinese president Xi Jinping’s first state visit to the Philippines this week.
Scattered in front of her in the office of the militant fisherfolk group Pamalakaya-Pilipinas, which represents over 100,00 fisherfolk, were paper rockets painted with the Chinese flag, encircled by a blue ring, bearing an all-caps message: “China, out of the Philippine waters!”
“There is nothing left for us to do, but to fight,” the group’s chairman Fernando Hicap, a lifelong fisherman, said steelily from the room next door.
Pamalakaya will be one of several groups mobilising ahead of Xi’s upcoming visit to the country on Tuesday and Wednesday next week.
Activists have been incensed by discussions over a joint oil and gas exploration deal in the disputed the South China Sea and are wary that the lure of high-profile investment projects will see the Philippine claim to the waters put on the back burner.
Xi’s two-day trip may see a framework agreement for a joint development deal off the coast of Palawan announced, as well as the expected big-ticket Chinese investment and loan deals under President Rodrigo Duterte’s “Build, Build, Build” programme.