EDITORIAL - ‘Better and better’

Bilateral ties keep getting “better and better,” Chinese President Xi Jinping said as he welcomed President Duterte the other day to Beijing. Considering the impressive growth of China as an economic powerhouse in the past four decades, it’s only fitting that the Philippines should forge stronger bilateral ties. The Philippines, after all, wants to be a friend to all and enemy of no one.

Bilateral ties would be even better, of course, if the two countries could work out their maritime disputes. While a definitive resolution will surely take time, confidence-building gestures are possible.

President Xi can start with his declaration that the Belt and Road Forum, which President Duterte is attending, must support “clean and green” projects. Chinese fishermen, believed to be maritime militias, continue to harvest endangered giant clams in the Spratlys including Panatag or Scarborough Shoal. Panatag has been declared by an international arbitration court as a common fishing ground, but Chinese militias continue to limit the movements of Filipino fishermen in the area.

China’s construction of artificial islands across the South China Sea, including in areas where the Philippines has been awarded sovereign rights such as Panganiban or Mischief Reef, has destroyed coral reefs and threatened the marine environment in the area. The artificial island-building is far from the clean and green concept.

With midterm elections just weeks away in the Philippines, the Duterte administration has been issuing strong statements about the country’s maritime entitlements in the South China Sea. President Duterte has risked domestic flak for his so-called pivot to China. Filipinos are still waiting for the goodwill to be reciprocated, beyond the provision of loans that will keep Filipinos in debt for decades.

A maritime expert has said that a minimum reciprocal gesture would be a decisive end to China’s harvesting of giant clams and other endangered species in Panatag and other parts of the West Philippine Sea. This should pose no problem between two friends whose ties keep getting better and better.