Duterte’s South China Sea U-turn: illegal climbdown, or clever gambit for oil?
- Philippine president says he will ignore an international court’s ruling and plough ahead with joint oil and gas exploration with Beijing in the South China Sea
- Experts say he’s either breached the constitution, or made a very smart move
Maritime experts have previously cautioned the Philippine president against downplaying the ruling, saying that to do so would only strengthen China’s resolve in pursuing its territorial claims in the sea. The court in The Hague had refused to recognise the “nine-dash line” that Beijing uses to claim most of the sea – including the Reed Bank, an undersea feature within the Philippine’s EEZ – as its sovereign territory. Beijing has never accepted the ruling.
But on Tuesday, just days after returning from that visit, Duterte said the “exclusive economic zone is part of the arbitral ruling which we will ignore to [pursue] economic activity [with China]”. He told a press conference that Chinese officials had told him they would be “gracious enough” to grant the Philippines a 60 per cent share of any deal on joint exploration.
