Philippine foreign minister Enrique Manalo said his country wants to solve maritime disputes with China peacefully — but delivered a simple message to Beijing: “stop harassing us”.
Speaking on the sidelines of an ASEAN-Australia summit in Melbourne, Manalo defended his government’s policy of publicising Chinese manoeuvres in contested maritime territory — including the recent passage of warships near Scarborough Shoal.
“It’s merely trying to inform the people of what’s going on,” Manalo said. “And some countries or one country at least has some difficulty with that.”
“But our simple explanation is if you would stop harassing us and, and perhaps performing other actions, there wouldn’t be any news to report.”
China claims almost the entire South China Sea as its territory, brushing aside claims from a host of Southeast Asian nations.
Scarborough Shoal — a triangular chain of reefs and rocks in the disputed South China Sea — has been a flashpoint between the countries since China seized it from the Philippines in 2012.