Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday accused the United States of having a provocative stance on the South China Sea and said its inaction when China started building manmade islands was the cause of tensions now besetting the region.
MANILA: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday accused the United States of having a provocative stance on the South China Sea and said its inaction when China started building manmade islands was the cause of tensions now besetting the region.
Duterte said Washington’s freedom of navigation patrols risked a „miscalculation“ that could spark conflict, and accused the previous U. S. administration of pressuring the Philippines to take a stand against China, without a guarantee of military support.
„You go there in the pretence of challenging them? “ he said of the U. S. patrols that began under the Obama administration. „One single solitary shot, it could lead to an explosion and it could lead to a war and it will be a slaughter. „
The firebrand leader is open about his grudge against his country’s oldest ally, which he said was bound by a treaty to protect the Philippines, but had done nothing when China started building in parts of Manila’s its exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
„Why in hell, America, the only one who can act there, why did it want my navy to go there? It will be a massacre for my soldiers,“ he told an audience of lawyers.
„Why did you not, the first instance, go to Chinese working there, building structures there? „
He added: „Why did you not reprimand them? Why did you not send five aircraft carriers? And you had to wait for the problem to ripen to an international issue involving, this time, so many countries.
