CITING China’s powerful economy bolstered by 800 million-middle class consumers, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. on Saturday said this imparts the Asian giant “an essential and imperative role in the post-pandemic global recovery.”
At the start of his meeting with visiting Chinese State Concilor Wang Yi in a Makati hotel, Locsin said, “Even in the resurgence of the pandemic worldwide and even in China, China has already recovered the gain she lost.”
The Department of Foreign Affairs chief told his counterpart that the Philippines is pleased that despite the challenges of the pandemic, their high-level engagements have stayed on track.
“With your third visit to the Philippines and our meeting today – only three months since our most recent meeting in beautiful Tengchong City in Yunnan Province – we demonstrate yet again the strong and manifold ties that bind the Philippines and China,” Locsin said.
Forty-five years since the start of diplomatic relations the two countries just recently celebrated, “we continue to manifest the importance we attach to our bilateral relations,” Locsin said, adding that for the Philippines’s part, “our ties with China stands among our most important bilateral relationships.”
He noted China’s position “as the Philippines’s top trading partner for four years now, and as a leading investment, ODA and tourism source,” all of which, Locsin said, “highlight China’s significance to our country.”
The country’s highest envoy said Covid-19 has posed the most trying of challenges — not quite a world war by any means, yet the scale and breadth of the havoc this invisible enemy has wreaked across the globe seems almost the same.
Nonetheless, the DFA chief said, “our robust and responsive ‘Comprehensive Strategic Cooperation’ has already adapted and risen to the occasion.”
According to Locsin, the “personal friendship” of the two Presidents — China’s Xi Jinping and the Philippines’s Rodrigo Dutere — “reflects our close national bonds,” adding that “our engagements in all levels have resumed, and our collaboration on priority economic and infrastructure projects is ongoing.”
Although stymied everywhere by the imperative pandemic lockdowns, Locsin said “mutual support and growing trust characterize our ties more than ever.”
He noted how the “Philippines has risen in China’s defense and brought along the rest of the region in that action, most notably in Laos,” referring to a special meeting of ministers last year where Manila urged its Asean peers to reach out to Beijing amid a wave of blaming around the world as the first Covid-19 cases began in Wuhan.
Wang Yi’s response
Responding to Locsin, Wang said, “we will firmly stand with the people of the Philippines until the defeat of this virus.
“So let me emphasize that in the process of the Philippine people’s response to Covid-19, China is a friend of the Philippines and your closest neighbor.”
While year 2020 was an extraordinary year for all countries that saw the pandemic thrusting the world into “a period of uncertainty and change,”
Wang said the friendship between Presidents Xi and Duterte allowed their countries to stand “shoulder to shoulder on the way forward to rise up to the challenges.”
Wang said it’s fair to say that China-Philippines relations “have withstood the test of the pandemic and learning this process our friendship has been further deepened.”
He continued: “So, standing at this new starting point of 2021, facing challenges beyond Covid-19, it is important for us to make an early plan of our interactions and cooperation for the whole year, shelve differences and build common ground, work closely with each other to firmly move forward along the course, jointly charted by our two presidents, and create more fruitful outcomes for our comprehensive strategic and cooperative relationship, and make more benefits to our two countries and the people of our two countries.”
Acknowledging Locsin’s remark that Covid response and economic recovery will be the top two priorities for both countries, Wang said, “we would like to suggest that our two countries work together – focusing on Covid response and mutually beneficial cooperation and at sustained and new momentum to our relationship.”
Overview of agreements
Meanwhile, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) released what it called an “Overview of the Grant Agreement on Economic and Technical Cooperation,” the 500-million Chinese Yuan grant – approximately P3.72 billion – to the Philippines, to be used to finance (a) livelihood projects, (b) infrastructure facilities, (c) feasibility studies for major projects, and (d) other projects to be mutually agreed upon by the two Governments.
The DFA said this is the seventh such grant provision to the Philippines by China since 2016.
“This brings the cumulative grant resources received from the Chinese government to a total of 3.25 billion Chinese yuan, or approximately P24.16 billion,” DFA said.
The DFA also added the signing of the commercial contract for the Clark-Subic railway worth $940M.
“The above are different agreements and not part of the technical cooperation agreement,” the DFA said, citing the statement from the Asia Pacific Affairs Office.
The DFA said any inquiry on which vaccine, Sinovac or Sinopharm, would be donated by China should be directed to the Department of Finance, which is “the lead on the matter of grants.
3 years ago
Three years since their first meeting in Davao City, Locsin said, “I take satisfaction in seeing it flourish and mature into a true and equal partnership between two sovereign states, one able to overcome difficulties and transcend differences, all to mutual benefit, yes, but above all, attaining genuine amity and comity.”
The former three-time Makati congressman said the Philippines and China “have reached an important juncture.
“The fight against Covid-19 and the universal acceptance of the new inescapable normal is entering a turning point, with the beginning of vaccinations.”
As for the ongoing dialogue to settle the South China Sea dispute, the Harvard-trained lawyer said that given “our two nations’ abiding our maritime commons, it behooves us to show our ability to rise to the challenge of managing differences peacefully and in accordance with law, while making headway towards trust-building and practical concrete mutually beneficial cooperation.”
Locsin said he is confident that during their meeting, “we can build on our sustained dialogue these past three years, and also hopefully open a new, important page in the unfolding saga of Philippines-China friendship.”
Image credits: Department of Foreign Affairs