MANILA: Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said on Monday that Beijing has \u201cmisinterpreted\u201d his comments saying Manila will be inevitably drawn in to a conflict between China and Taiwan should one erupt.<\/p>\n
China accused Marcos of \u201cplaying with fire\u201d after the Philippine leader said during a visit to India that \u201cthere is no way that the Philippines can stay out of it\u201d due to its proximity to the democratically governed island.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are, I think for propaganda purposes, misinterpreted,\u201d Marcos told a press briefing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a little bit perplexed why it would be characterized as such, as playing with fire,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Marcos said Filipinos working and living in Taiwan will have to be evacuated if a conflict does arise but maintained that he wishes to avoid confrontation and war.<\/p>\n
Over a hundred thousand Filipinos live and work in Taiwan, according to Philippine government data.<\/p>\n
\u201cWar over Taiwan will drag the Philippines kicking and screaming into the conflict. That is what I was trying to say,\u201d Marcos said.<\/p>\n
Marcos\u2019 comments come at a time of heightened tensions between Manila and Beijing over territorial disputes in the South China Sea, a strategic waterway where the two countries have had a series of maritime run-ins over the past years.<\/p>\n
On Monday, a Philippine vessel transporting provisions to Filipino fishermen in the Scarborough Shoal was sprayed at with a water cannon by a Chinese coast guard ship, the Philippine Coast Guard said. The vessel managed to evade being hit.<\/p>\n
China\u2019s embassy in Manila did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the president\u2019s remarks.<\/p>\n
Responding to the Monday incident, China\u2019s coast guard said it had taken necessary measures to expel Philippine vessels from Scarborough Shoal, which China claims as its own territory.<\/p>\n
It described the operation as \u201cprofessional, standardized, legitimate and legal.\u201d<\/p>\n
A 2016 ruling of an international arbitral tribunal voided Beijing\u2019s sweeping claims in the region, saying they had no basis under international law, a decision China rejects.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MANILA: Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said on Monday that Beijing has \u201cmisinterpreted\u201d his comments saying Manila will be inevitably drawn in to a conflict between China and Taiwan should one erupt. China accused Marcos of \u201cplaying with fire\u201d after the Philippine leader said during a visit to India that \u201cthere is no way that …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":85254,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85253"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85255,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85253\/revisions\/85255"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}