Philippines disputes China’s agreement about the disputed South China Sea shelf

The Philippines refuted a Chinese claim on Saturday, April 27, that it and China had achieved a settlement over a growing territorial conflict in the South China Sea, labeling the allegation as propaganda.

Without providing further details, a spokesman for China’s embassy in Manila stated on April 18 that the two countries had decided to implement a “new model” for handling tensions at the Second Thomas Shoal early this year.

Since President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. assumed office in 2022, the Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro stated on Saturday that his department is “not aware of, nor is it a party to, any internal agreement with China.” According to Teodoro, since last year, representatives of the defense department have not communicated with any Chinese counterparts.

An inquiry over Teodoro’s remarks made outside of business hours was not immediately answered by China’s embassy in Manila.

In recent months, Beijing and Manila have battled often over the undersea reef, which China believes is within its exclusive economic zone but which the Philippines maintains is its own.

China was allegedly firing water cannons at Philippine warships and obstructing maneuvers in an attempt to impede supply missions to Filipino soldiers stationed in a naval ship that Manila purposefully wrecked in 1999 to support its maritime claims.

Nearly the whole South China Sea is under Chinese sovereignty and is a route for ship sales worth over US$3 trillion annually. Its claims coincide with those of four other countries, including the Philippines. Beijing disagrees with the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague’s 2016 ruling that China’s claims lacked legal support.

Teodoro stated that the Philippines would never sign any agreements that would jeopardize its claims to the canal and referred to China’s assertions of a bilateral agreement as “part of the Chinese propaganda.”

He claimed that the story being spread by anonymous or unidentified Chinese authorities was just another crass attempt to spread misinformation.