China’s Xi threatens war, Philippine leader says

MANILA, Philippines — China’s president warned the Philippines that it would go to war if Manila insisted on enforcing an international arbitration decision rejecting China’s claims over disputed areas of the South China Sea, the Philippine president said in a televised speech Friday.

Although both sides pledged for now to talk and to avoid confrontation, the remarks by President Rodrigo Duterte highlighted the stakes in a part of Asia that has become a geopolitical flash point. The warning — which Beijing did not immediately confirm — also draws attention to a policy dilemma for the United States, which is trying to maintain its naval dominance in the Pacific in the face of China’s military buildup and its construction of artificial islands in disputed waters.

In a landmark ruling last July, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, based in The Hague, delivered a sweeping rebuke of China’s behavior in the South China Sea, including the creation of islands that could be used for military purposes, and found that its claim of sovereignty over the waters had no legal basis. However, there is no legal mechanism for enforcing the decision, and Beijing has refused to abide by it.

In a speech Friday to the Philippine coast guard in the southern city of Davao, Duterte claimed that President Xi Jinping of China had cautioned him against trying to enforce the ruling. Xi said the two countries could eventually discuss it, “but it cannot be done now,” Duterte said.

“We intend to drill oil there, if it’s yours, well, that’s your view, but my view is I can drill the oil, if there is some inside the bowels of the earth, because it is ours,” Duterte quoted Xi as telling him.

Duterte described Xi’s position as, “We’re friends, we don’t want to quarrel with you,” but “if you force the issue, we’ll go to war.”

Duterte did not say when the exchange with Xi took place, but his national security adviser, Hermogenes Esperon Jr., said the leaders discussed the issue during a recent meeting in Beijing on China’s “One Belt, One Road” trade and investment initiative.

The waters of the South China Sea are claimed by numerous countries, including Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam. The tribunal in The Hague affirmed the Philippines’ sovereign rights in its 200-mile exclusive economic zone, where it can access oil and gas fields. It also invalidated China’s so-called nine-dash line, an expansive sovereignty claim on Chinese maps.

The Chinese Embassy could not be reached for comment Friday, but Duterte’s claims are expected to raise new tensions.

The 72-year-old Duterte, former longtime mayor of Davao, is known for making statements that provoke and at times befuddle the public.

His remarks about Xi came in one of his four scheduled speeches Friday, a day after China and the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations agreed in principle to push for a draft framework of a “code of conduct” to govern actions in the region.

The agreement was reached after a meeting in the southern Chinese city of Guiyang, according to the Philippine Foreign Ministry.

“The Philippines welcomes the finalization by ASEAN and China senior officials of the draft of the framework of the code of conduct,” the ministry said Friday, without providing details.

The document is to be presented to the foreign ministers of the group and China at their post-ministerial conference in Manila in August, it said.

Also Friday, the Philippine envoy to China, Jose Santiago Santa Romana, held a meeting with a Chinese vice minister for foreign affairs, Liu Zhenmin, to discuss the dispute over the South China Sea in a “frank, in-depth and friendly manner.” Both sides agreed to cooperate and “find ways forward,” the Philippine ministry said.

Both sides affirmed the importance of “maintaining and promotion of peace and stability, freedom of navigation in and overflight above the South China Sea, addressing their territorial and jurisdictional disputes by peaceful means,” the ministry said.

Duterte has played down the conflict since assuming office last year, taking a less confrontational stance toward the disputed waters than his predecessor, Benigno Aquino. He has drawn closer to China and has also distanced himself from a traditional ally, the United States.

On Friday, however, he warned that a war with China would “result in massacre” and “destroy everything.”