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Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., often referred to by his nickname “Bongbong,” made his first visit in office to China this week, holding meetings with dictator Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang.
The Marcos administration said the president planned to sign up to 14 bilateral agreements with the Chinese during his visit but insisted he would not give ground on Philippine territorial claims in the South China Sea.
The South China Morning Post (SCMP) on Wednesday said Beijing saw Marcos’ visit as crucial to stopping “a key member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations getting closer to the United States amid the heightened rivalry between Washington and Beijing.”
China offers to open talks on oil exploration deal with Philippines as Presidents Xi Jinping and Ferdinand Marcos meet https://t.co/bDblxYPjMk
South China Morning Post (@SCMPNews) January 4, 2023
To that end, Xi reminisced about his previous meetings with Marcos and lavished praise on his father Ferdinand Marcos, the corrupt authoritarian ruler of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986.
For his part, Marcos included former Philippine president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, an old personal friend of Xi’s, as a surprise member of his entourage.
“They had a few minutes of recollecting the meetings that they have had, which I think helped the tone of the meeting,” Marcos said of Xi’s encounter with Macapagal-Arroyo.
In addition to signing a raft of China-Philippines cooperation agreements on commerce, infrastructure, and tourism, Xi proposed joint oil and gas exploration by the two countries in the contested waters of the South China Sea.
China claims almost the entire region, up to an arbitrary barrier invented by Beijing called the “Nine-Dash Line.” China’s claims were ruled illegal by an international arbitration court in 2016, but China routinely ignores the decision.
The Philippine government has competing claims with China in parts of the South China Sea, but Marcos, Jr.’s predecessor Rodrigo Duterte generally backed away from pressing those claims, citing the immense power imbalance between the Philippines and China.
Philippine officials said on Wednesday that while the tone of Marcos’ visit was cordial and constructive, he was more determined than Duterte to stand by Manila’s claims in what it calls the “West Philippine Sea.
