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The Philippine president said Saturday the Chinese coast guard’s aiming of a military-grade laser that briefly blinded some crew aboard a Philippine patrol vessel in the disputed South China Sea was not enough for him to invoke a mutual defense treaty with the United States but added he told China that such aggression should stop.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. told a news conference he also reminded China’s ambassador to Manila that escalating aggression and incursions into Philippine waters by Beijing’s coast guard, navy and maritime militia forces violate an agreement he struck with Chinese President Xi Jinping last month.
“Despite the fact that it was a military-grade laser that was pointed at our coast guard, I do not think that that is sufficient for it to trigger the Mutual Defense Treaty,” Marcos said in his first public remarks about the Feb. 6 incident involving two Chinese and Philippine coast guard vessels near the disputed Second Thomas Shoal.
Responding to a question, Marcos said he was concerned that activating the 1951 treaty would ratchet up regional tensions.
Marcos spoke to reporters in the northern resort city of Baguio where he delivered a speech before cadets and former graduates of the Philippine Military Academy and repeated a vow to defend the country’s territory amid a new territorial spat with China.
