President’s statement in reaction to China’s recent warnings to Philippine military aircraft conducting routine patrols
President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday urged China to temper its behavior in the South China Sea in a rare rebuke of Beijing.
"You cannot create an island and say that the air above this artificial island is yours. That is wrong. Those waters are considered international sea and the right of innocent passage is guaranteed,” Duterte said during an event at the presidential palace in Manila as quoted by local media.
He made the remarks in front of business leaders and diplomats, including U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines Sung Kim, in reaction to recent reports of China warning Philippine military aircraft patrolling near artificial islands in the South China Sea.
"I hope China would temper its behavior. I do not want to quarrel with China," he added.
Reports circulated last week of Chinese military outposts warning U.S. and Philippine military planes but with a more aggressive approach towards Filipinos.
"Philippine military aircraft! I’m warning you again. Leave immediately, or you will bear responsibility for all the consequences!" a voice on a radio transmission suspected of coming from the artificial islands was heard saying.
The incident came even as the Duterte administration sought to downplay Manila’s maritime dispute with China.
Beijing claims almost all of the South China Sea. Southeast Asian nations Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam have overlapping claims on the waters.
The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague concluded in 2016 that Beijing's claims to areas of the resource-rich sea have no legal basis in an arbitration launched by the Philippines, whose “sovereign rights” it said China had violated. China rejected the ruling.
