VLADIVOSTOK, Russia - Philippine President Benigno Aquino failed
to meet his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao at a regional summit on Sunday,
Manila's foreign secretary said, amid deep tensions over a maritime row.
The two sides tried to arrange
talks between Aquino and Hu at a two-day Asia-Pacific leaders' meeting in the
Russian Far East port of Vladivostok, but ran out of time, Albert del Rosario
said.
"It just came to a
scheduling challenge, but as you can see the scheduling challenge turned out to
be a bigger challenge than we anticipated," he said.
Aquino's aides had said
beforehand that a meeting with Hu was his top priority for the APEC
(Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) summit.
China claims sovereignty over
nearly all of the South China Sea, which is believed to hold vast amounts of
oil and gas, is a rich fishing ground and is home to shipping lanes vital to
global trade.
But the Philippines, Brunei,
Malaysia, Vietnam and Taiwan also make claims on the sea, some of them
overlapping, and Manila and Hanoi accuse Beijing of a campaign of intimidation
to press its claims.
Tensions between the Philippines
and China have been particularly pronounced, escalating dramatically in April
when vessels from the two countries became engaged in a stand-off at a remote
shoal in the sea.
The failure of the anticipated
Aquino-Hu talks contrasted with discussions the Chinese leader had with
Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang, which a Chinese government spokesman
described as friendly.
Hu also met the Sultan of Brunei,
which is less vocal in asserting its claims, and the representative of Taiwan.
- AFP/ir
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