MANILA – The government filed a diplomatic protest on China’s new law that allows its coast guard to shoot on foreign vessels in a move that could escalate tension in the contested waters of the West Philippines Sea or South China Sea.
After his reflection on the said issue, Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) secretary Teodoro Locsin, Jr. filed a protest which counters his statement that Chinese coast guard law is “none of our business”.
“While enacting law is a sovereign prerogative, this one—given the area involved or for that matter the open South China Sea—is a verbal threat of war to any country that defies the law; which, if unchallenged, is submission to it,” Locsin deemed it necessary to protest China’s controversial law.
The palace welcomed the protest done by Locsin stating it as evidence that the Philippines is fully committed to the rule of law. “We are optimistic that this diplomatic protest wills unlikely affect the country’s vaccine deals with China,” Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said in his virtual presser on Thursday.
The new China law speaks that its coast guard are allowed to undertake “all necessary measures, including the use of weapons when national sovereignty, sovereign rights, and jurisdiction are being illegally infringed upon by foreign organizations or individuals at sea.”
The said law, which was passed last week, is expected to brew tension anew in the waters where the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have overlapping claims.
China, which insisted on historical and indisputable claim over nearly the entire South China Sea, has expanded its presence in the waters, turning several former reefs into artificial islands with military facilities, runways and surface to air missiles./PN
