President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
Is China looking for a fight?
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. had China’s rope-and-net barrier on a lagoon in Scarborough Island removed by the Philippine Coast Guard, allowing Filipino fishermen to fish the waters, hauling in 164 tons of fish in one day.
Philippine surveillance aircraft were deployed Thursday, spotting two Chinese Coast Guard craft, making it hard for the fishermen to enter the lagoon.
China, of course, played down the dismantling of the barrier.
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Communists have gotten by with the deny-lie-and-sidestep game — for what, a hundred years or so? Now they are helped in the spread by the West, especially the media.
Marcos doesn’t appear to want a fight, but seems willing to step up and do what’s right by his people.
The Associated Press reports:
“We’re not looking for trouble, but what we’ll do is to continue defending the maritime territory of the Philippines and the rights of our fishermen, who have been fishing in those areas for hundreds of years,” Marcos said in response to a question at a news briefing in southern Surigao del Norte province.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at a news briefing in Beijing on Wednesday that the shoal “is China’s inherent territory.”
“What the Philippines (has) done is nothing but a farce that entertains itself. China will continue to safeguard the territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests of Huangyan Island,” Wang said, using the Chinese name for Scarborough.
Marcos said that the Philippines will not give an inch.
