The Philippines president has acknowledged that he’s short of solutions for pressing China to adhere to Manila’s arbitration victory in their South China Sea disputes.
Rodrigo Duterte spoke for the first time about his talk with Chinese President Xi Jinping about the thorny disputes on Wednesday night, when he was asked what move he would take next. Duterte, who has nurtured friendly ties with China, met Xi in Beijing last week.
Xi told him flatly: “We will not budge,” AP quoted the Philippines leader as saying. “They’re claiming it as their own and… they have the control over the property,” Duterte added.
He has long been criticized by nationalists and left-wing groups for not immediately demanding Chinese compliance with a 2016 ruling by an arbitration tribunal in The Hague. The ruling declared China’s claims to virtually the entire South China Sea as invalid under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.