MANILA, Philippines - President Aquino vows to continue to do
“what is right” as far as the country’s relations with China is concerned and
leave the rest to God.
Aquino said it is tough to make
decisions concerning the country’s territorial dispute with China.
He must decide whether to “adopt
the kowtowing attitude or stand up for that which you think is right.”
In an interview with Rappler’s
Maria Ressa at Malacañang on Wednesday, Aquino said: “When you stand up for
that which is right, how hard should it be? Or how diplomatic should it be?
“Primarily, I’ll do everything
that I can then leave everything else to God.
“Hopefully He will guide us, He
will strengthen us, He will point the directions we are supposed to go to.”
Aquino said he would also decide
the actions to take based on what a “reasonable” individual would do given the
particular circumstances.
At the Annual Presidential Forum
of the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines, Aquino cited the
“very gradual warming up” of relations with China that had begun.
He said this would likely
continue as “ultra nationalist” sentiment in Beijing was likely to ease after a
leadership change next month.
“We hope these domestic pressures
on China will be lessened after the transition, so we will have more room to
negotiate and discuss in more reasonable terms and less ultra-nationalist
terms,” he said.
“We are taking a wait-and-see
attitude,” he added.
The domestic pressures in China
ahead of its once-in-a-decade transition of power had affected efforts to
improve diplomatic relations to a level seen before the dispute flared, Aquino
said.
Chinese President Hu Jintao is
expected to hand over power as head of the Communist Party to Vice President Xi
Jinping during a congress starting on Nov. 8.
But Hu will remain the country’s
president until next March.
Aquino said no back-channel talks
are going on with China on the territorial issues – at least for now. He also
denied taking a bilateral approach to addressing the problem.
Earlier, Sen. Antonio Trillanes
IV was revealed to have been involved in back-channel talks with Beijing,
supposedly with the Palace’s blessings.
“That is not correct,” Aquino
said when asked if Trillanes’ China mission was an indication of the President’s
openness to bilateral talks, which Beijing prefers.
“Bilateral (talks) can be a
component but multilateral is the approach. The problem is multilateral. In
ASEAN alone, there are four countries of the 10 who are claimants to the
Spratlys group,” he said.
“So how can two talk or how can
one of four talk with China and bind the other three?”
Aquino said multilateral talks
can only be effective if it “binds everybody.”
“Otherwise, we settle a portion
of the problem and we retain the rest of the problem,” he told the group of
foreign and local journalists.
Aquino said there seemed to be a
“little bettering” of the relations between Manila and Beijing, despite the two
sides holding their ground firmly.
He cited Interior and Local
Government Secretary Manuel Roxas II’s meeting with leader-in-waiting Xi at the
China-ASEAN Expo in Nanning City recently to discuss the territorial dispute.
“The little warming up is that
they have initiated dialogue with us. Initially at Vladivostok (in Russia at
the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit) but that didn’t push through, but
subsequently at the China-ASEAN Expo,” he said.
“The messages were practically
the same, only there are some differences. That’s why I said there seems to be
a very gradual warming up,” he said.
“I want to be very precise. We
are hopeful this gradual warming up will be really warmed up by the time of the
transition.”
Aquino said the mood was
different at the height of the standoff at Panatag.
“If you were to return to what it
was before the conflict in Bajo de Masinloc happened, then that is a very
significant improvement,” he said.
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