‘Any suggestion?’ Philippine president Duterte asks after Xi Jinping reaffirms South China Sea claims

‘Have you heard of any sane solution short of going to war,’ Duterte says when pressed over meeting with Chinese president last week

Xi reportedly urged Philippine leader to ‘put aside’ the dispute and focus on pushing forward a deal on oil and gas exploration

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Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. Photo: AP

Published: 8:30pm, 5 Sep 2019Updated: 1:55pm, 12 Dec 2019

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has admitted he has no way of ensuring China complies with an arbitral ruling that upheld Manila’s sovereign rights to a swathe of the South China Sea, describing the impasse as “a sore thumb that sticks out every day”.

Duterte’s comments on the issue were his first since returning from an official trip to Beijing last week, where he met Chinese President Xi Jinping. He had pledged to discuss the 2016 ruling that declared China’s claims to virtually the entire South China Sea not valid under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

But Xi urged Duterte to “put aside” the dispute and focus on pushing forward a deal on oil and gas exploration in the disputed waterway.

Duterte, in a televised press conference on Wednesday night, quoted the Chinese leader as replying almost in a whisper: “You know, our statement was: ‘We will not budge.’ We don’t want to discuss that because it’s ours. We own the property. Why should we talk to you?”

Duterte then recounted how he replied.

“Out of courtesy, I said: ‘Well, I will not, maybe, insist on your answer now. I am not satisfied with your answer, but I will not ask for any other answer. I’ll just remain where I am, where I started, considering that you are under stress by the incidents in Hong Kong.’”

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