By Rigoberto Tiglao Jan. 23, 2023

 Repiblished from The Manila Times

 

In his only solo session at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, a 21-minute interview by the WEF President Børge Brende, President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. showed how much he is so terribly misinformed about the country's dispute with China in the South China Sea.

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While he may have been simply confused about the details of the dispute, still, his misinformation is as bad as that of President Benigno Aquino 3rd that led to his unnecessarily belligerent stance toward China, which eventually led to a dangerous standoff at Panatag Shoal and our loss of that territory in 2012.

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Going to the topic of the South China Sea dispute, the interviewer asked Marcos: "What defines what is Filipino territory and what is Chinese territory." He replied: "We have no conflicting claims with China. What we have is China making claims on our territory — that is how we approach the problem we find."

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That is exactly the "what-is-ours-is-ours approach' of President Aquino 3rd, which in effect portrays China as an aggressor, who therefore has to give in to the Philippines' demand and that there can be no compromise on this.

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These are our ‘baselines’ which Marcos doesn’t seem to understand what these are. OFFICAL MAP ISSUED BY NAMRIA

Diplomatic sources claimed that statement alone has sent a bad message to China, which would likely be more cautious in dealing with the Philippines. They added: With that kind of hardline stance, China may just decide to cease all attempts at settling amicably its South China Sea problem with the Philippines.

Since the interview was posted in the WEF, Marcos practically boasted to the world that he is badgering China on the South China Sea issue: "There's no way to avoid the issue. There is no way to avoid it. We describe it, and I suppose in diplomatic language as one part of our relationship, but it is an important and unavoidable issue that we have to ventilate, and we cannot sweep it under the rug and pretend it's not happening because there are effects not only in the diplomatic sense, not only in the security sense but even in the livelihood of our citizens."

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Sweeping

Marcos' saying that China and the Philippines "can't be sweeping under the rug" the South China Sea dispute would be insulting to the Chinese, whose announced policy on territorial disputes was formulated by China's revered leader Deng Xiaoping in 1978 that became the country's doctrine: "Set aside dispute and pursue joint development." That was the slogan based on Deng's lengthier sentence, "Let us put aside this dispute which future generations may have more wisdom to resolve. "
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