Flotilla visit delights Duterte
Print Edition
PHILIPPINE President Rodrigo Duterte visited Chinese warships docked in his hometown yesterday and raised the prospect of future joint exercises, highlighting fast-warming relations despite competing claims in the South China Sea.
Duterte made his visit a day after issuing a chairman’s statement on behalf of the 10-nation ASEAN bloc that took a soft stance toward China.
The Philippine leader praised the guided missile destroyer Chang Chun as very impressive. “It’s all carpeted inside. It’s like a hotel,” he enthused after being presented with a Chinese naval cap.
“This is part of confidence-building and goodwill and to show we are friends,” Duterte said of the three-vessel flotilla that arrived in Davao City on Mindanao island on Sunday.
Asked about possible joint exercises between the Philippines and China, Duterte said “Yes, I said I agree. There can be joint exercises.” He suggested they be held in the southern Philippines, perhaps in the Sulu Sea where pirates have been active in recent months.
Duterte, elected last year, has distanced himself from his country’s traditional longtime ally the United States.
He has played down his country’s territorial dispute with China. In the statement issued after he hosted the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Manila, Duterte merely took note of “concerns expressed by some leaders over recent developments in the area.”
The visit of the Chinese vessels to Davao rather than Manila is widely seen as a personal gesture to the controversial Philippine leader.
It is the first Chinese navy port call to the country since 2010, the Philippine navy said, adding that “goodwill games” of basketball and tug-of-war were staged between the Chinese sailors and their Filipino counterparts in Davao.
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