MANILA – Malacañang downplayed a Pentagon report that China may bring nuclear power in the disputed West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) as just “a US observation.”
“We are not in a position to verify that,” Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque Jr. told a Palace press briefing Thursday. “It is a possibility, according to the American sources. So we leave it at that.”
But Roque clarified that the Palace will be “concerned about the entry of any and all nuclear weapons into the Philippine territory because our Constitution provides that we are a nuclear-free zone.”
An Association of Southeast Asian Nations treaty declared that the entire ASEAN region should be a nuclear-free zone and this should be observed by all countries, Roque said.
“We are concerned about the possibility that any foreign power – be it America, Russia, China – may bring nuclear warheads into our territory and into ASEAN, which is a nuclear-free zone,” he said.
China denied the United States report, which it called a “total disregard of facts, makes presumptuous and irresponsible comments on China’s national defense development.”
“China stays committed to a peaceful development path and follows a national defense policy that is defensive in nature,” China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said in a press statement on Aug. 18.
“It is always a builder of world peace, contributor to global development and defender of international order,” he added.
The Chinese official said their national defense development aims to safeguard its national independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, “which is the lawful rights for a sovereign state to exercise.” (PNA)
