Philippine, Chinese top diplomats agree to ease South China Sea tensions
Foreign ministers hold 1st meeting in 2 years as Manila conducts resupply mission
VIENTIANE -- Foreign ministers of the Philippines and China met on Friday evening in Vientiane and agreed to cool simmering tensions in the South China Sea in line with their earlier provisional agreement on resupply missions in Manila's outposts in the disputed waterway.
China's Wang Yi and the Philippines' Enrique Manalo talked for an hour, after participating in a dinner organized for top diplomats present in Laos for an annual meeting of top diplomats from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its partner countries.
"We didn't go into that many details," Manalo told reporters on Friday night. "But we did agree that we would honor the provisional agreement in a clear and sincere effort to defuse tensions and try and prevent any incidents, of course, from leading to further tension in our relationship."
"But most importantly, we also acknowledged that the provisional agreement will not prejudice our respective positions on our claims of the South China Sea. But we both agreed again that we will try our best," he added.
At the heart of these tensions is the South China Sea, which China lays claim to. The Philippines claims parts of the disputed waterway that fall within its exclusive economic zone. Unlike the Philippines, China has used aggression to assert its claims, acts that were called unlawful by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in 2016.
The bilateral meeting between the two ministers is their first face-to-face meeting since July 2022, a few weeks after Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. was elected.
Wang and Manalo's meeting focused on cooling tensions, ever since the maritime clash on June 17, when Chinese Coast Guard personnel, armed with spears and knives, boarded a Philippine boat near the waters of Second Thomas Shoal and damaged equipment on the boat. A Filipino serviceman also lost a thumb in the clash. Manila called the incident "piracy" and demanded Beijing pay $1 million in reparations for property damage.
Both Manila and Beijing have aired different takes on the "provisional arrangement" for the resupply missions to the BRP Sierra Madre, a grounded warship stationed at Second Thomas Shoal, a maritime feature within the Philippines' exclusive economic zone. Manila said it did not agree to on-site inspections from Chinese vessels, as well as prior notifications for such missions.
On Saturday, Manila mounted a resupply mission to Second Thomas Shoal. The Philippines Department of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that the mission went without a hitch, a far cry from past missions that saw the Philippine actions facing Chinese disruptions. This is the Philippines' first resupply mission since the Philippines and China reached a provisional agreement earlier this month.
The agreement was reached through a bilateral meeting on July 2 when senior diplomats from both countries sat down together to find ways to deescalate tensions. The talks bore fruit, as the two sides came up with an understanding regarding Manila's resupply missions to its outposts and a hotline between their leaders to improve maritime communications. But neither country has detailed the contents of the agreement.
The Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece Xinhua News Agency said on Saturday that Wang had warned the Philippines that the deployment of a U.S. intermediate missile system will "create regional tension and confrontation" and "trigger an arms race." China has taken notice of such actions in the past, such as in April when the Typhon missile system was installed in the Philippines for the annual military exercises between Manila and Washington.
China has been expressing its irritation over outsiders' involvement in its maritime dispute with Manila. In the latest case, Wang on Friday told diplomats at an ASEAN conference in Laos that China does not take kindly to other countries meddling in the maritime dispute.
The bilateral meeting came at an inflection point for their relations. Maritime tensions have became so rife that Philippine President Marcos said in his annual State of the Nation Address on Monday that the West Philippine Sea, an area of the disputed waterway that falls in Manila's exclusive economic zone, is "not a figment of the imagination."