Marcos to meet with Blinken next week as South China Sea tensions rise

President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. will meet US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday next week to tackle cooperation and security matters, the office of the Manila leader said in a statement late on Wednesday night.

Their meeting comes on the heels of heightened tensions between the Philippines and China over territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

Marcos also vowed to defend the Philippines’ maritime claims after Chinese President Xi Jinping called on the armed forces to coordinate preparations for military conflicts at sea.

“So, I’m not surprised, but we will have to continue to do what we can to defend our maritime territory in the face of perhaps a more active attempt by the Chinese to annex some of our territory,” Marcos told a news conference during a working visit to Berlin this week.

A 2016 ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague found that China’s sweeping claims over the South China Sea had no legal basis, but Beijing has rejected the ruling, claiming “indisputable sovereignty” over most of the regioni.

Philippine government sources earlier said Blinken and Japan Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa will visit Manila next week for talks focusing on bolstering defense and economic ties ahead of a summit of their leaders in US in April.

Blinken will first arrive in Manila on March 18 for bilateral talks with Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo and other senior Philippine officials before their March 20 trilateral ministerial meeting with Kamikawa, the sources said.

The top-level meetings follow a series of hostilities between Chinese and Philippine ships and vessels in the disputed South China Sea, which have been denounced by the Philippines along with the United States and Japan.

At the top of their agenda is a planned trilateral summit of US President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Marcos at the White House in Washington DC on April 11.

The US and Japan have also boosted their trade and investments in the Philippines while enhancing defense cooperation. —with GMA Integrated News/KBK, GMA Integrated News