China should act on securing peace in disputed waters: Philippines
The Philippines has called on China to “show sincerity” and make more efforts aimed at securing peace in the disputed South China Sea.
A spokesman for the Philippines’ Defense Department made the remarks on Sunday after China carried out a massive military parade aimed at marking the anniversary of the end of World War II.
At the end of the parade on September 3, Chinese President Xi Jinping said Beijing was committed to peace and did “not seek hegemony.”
The Philippines’ Defense Department spokesman Peter Paul Galvez welcomed the Chinese leader’s comments, but questioned Beijing’s show of “offensive weaponry.”
“We call on China’s government to show its sincerity by, at the least, stopping all ongoing construction and militarization activities and to refrain from restricting freedom of flight and navigation,” he added.
Galvez further called on Beijing to end its “deceitful rhetoric” regarding the territorial dispute.
Beijing claims most of the South China Sea. However, some of the territory overlaps with areas claimed by the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Taiwan, and Brunei, which all seek to exploit the region’s possibly extensive reserves of oil and gas.
The Philippines has been working to improve its defense relations with countries such as the United States and Japan in a move aimed at countering what it calls a Chinese threat.
This comes as the United States also accuses China of undergoing a massive “land reclamation” program in the Spratly archipelago of the South China Sea, and says China’s territorial claims of the man-made islands could further militarize the region.
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