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As China’s Xi heads to Philippines, has South China Sea oil exploration deal given him the slip?
- With visit by Chinese president, hopes had been high for a deal on joint oil exploration in the South China Sea
- But those ambitions are fading as experts spot a slip up in the fine print: it’s against the constitution
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Days before a state visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping, the Philippine government is scrambling to draft a deal for joint oil exploration in the South China Sea that will be acceptable to China.
The problem is, not only has the appointment of a new Philippine foreign affairs secretary muddied the waters, but what China finds “acceptable” may violate the 1987 constitution, according to legal experts.
These problems throw a spanner in the works for Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who for the past year has been urging Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to shelve the countries’ dispute over the South China Sea and approve the “joint development” of oil and gas resources.
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For his part, Duterte had appeared amenable to Wang’s advances, having likened joint development to “co-ownership”, and in July last year Wang met the Philippines’ then foreign affairs secretary, Alan Peter Cayetano, to flesh out a deal.
A draft framework of this deal was supposed to have been approved in September, but Typhoon Mangkhut delayed matters and by the time Wang had finally made it back to Manila, Duterte had a new foreign secretary – Teodoro Locsin Jnr, a lawyer, seasoned legislator and the Philippines’ former permanent representative to the United Nations.
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At first, it appeared Locsin would merely inherit a finished draft of the deal from Cayetano and the agreement would go ahead as planned.
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