Philippines bucks Russia’s global isolation, backs China as mediator

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines believes that the global isolation of Russia will serve only to dilute the three major resolutions that have already established the illegality and indecency of the latter’s attack on Ukraine, as Manila voiced support for China as a “credible” mediator in the conflict.

“Singling out a state for global isolation has not served the international community. Do we want another North Korea, next door to North Korea, but spanning 11 time zones and swimming in oil and floating on gas? It wouldn’t be, as the USSR was once dismissed, Upper Volta with missiles,” Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. said at a meeting with United States President Joseph Biden Jr. on regional and global issues during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-US Special Summit in Washington last Saturday.

Locsin was referring to the then Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

The Philippines’ top diplomat stated that the indecency of the Russian attack on Ukraine, the brutality of its methods and the deliberate targeting of the softest targets – children and mothers – prompted the Philippines to cast in the United Nations the first vote condemning the Russian aggression, its vote deploring the humanitarian crises created and its vote to suspend Russian membership in the UN Human Rights Council.

“A credible mediator may be needed. I can think of no other than China whose strength and success, even in these worst of times, qualifies it for the respect of the United States and Russia,” Locsin said.

He noted that he sees the important role that China alone can fill in the current crisis on the other side of the world.