Palace: Duterte raised Ayungin incident at ASEAN-China summit
MANILA, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte, speaking at a regional summit with China, has raised the issue of Chinese ships blocking efforts to resupply Philippine troops on Ayungin Shoal, the Palace said Monday.
According to a Palace statement, Duterte raised the South China Sea issue at the ASEAN-China Special Summit to Commemorate the 30th Anniversary of Dialogue Relations, where he stressed that the dispute cannot be solved by force. Manila calls parts of the South China within the Philippines' exclusive economic zone the West Philippine Sea.
"We abhor the recent event in the Ayungin Shoal and view with grave concern other similar developments. This does not speak well of the relations between our nations and our partnership," Duterte said, referring to Chinese coast guard vessels blocking and water-cannoning two supply boats headed to Ayungin Shoal last week.
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According to the Armed Forces of the Philippines, some of the Chinese ships have left Ayungin Shoal — where a Philippine Navy ship is grounded and serves as an outpost — leaving only two Chinese coast guard vessels in the area as of Sunday.
Duterte stressed that the UN Covenant on the Law of the Sea and a 2016 arbitral ruling invalidating China's sweeping nine-dash-line claim over the South China Sea "provide legal clarity…pointing us to a just and fair solution to our disputes," the Palace also said.
The Palace said the president urged China to remain committed to working towards "the conclusion of an effective and substantive Code of Conduct in the South China Sea", a goal that ASEAN and China have been working on for decades.
Absent a binding code of conduct among claimants in the South China Sea, the Philippines and China have put in place the Bilateral Consultation Mechanism on the South China Sea. The mechanism, established in 2016, is meant as a venue for parties to address differences and ease tensions.
"There is simply no other way out of this colossal problem but the rule of law," the Palace quotes Duterte as saying. The president has repeatedly said that the Philippines does not stand a chance against China and has cautioned against escalating tension between the two nations over the South China Sea.
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