China has belied a report claiming it excluded the Philippines from its planned revival of an ancient maritime silk road, which aims to build infrastructure across the region to bolster trade among nations.
“The media report of ‘China bypassing Philippines in its 21st century maritime silk road’ is incorrect,” the Chinese Embassy in Manila said in a statement, referring to a Nov. 10 article published by the Wall Street Journal.
In the report, the Wall Street Journal said “official Chinese maps...show the route conspicuously bypassing the Philippines.”
It also quoted Philippine Foreign Undersecretary Economic Relations Laura del Rosario as saying that the Philippines felt it was left out of the plan.
The embassy said Beijing has not published such map or intends to leave out the Philippines, which has maritime dispute with China in the South China Sea, parts of which Manila .
“China has never published any official map of the 21st century maritime silk road, nor has China excluded the Philippines from the blueprint of the 21st century maritime silk road,” the embassy said.
“Since ancient times, the trade, cultural, and personnel exchanges between China and the Philippines have been conducted on the sea with a history of more than a millennium,” it added.
The ancient trade route spans through Southeast Asia to Venice via South Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
At this week’s recently concluded Asia-Pacific economic summit in Beijing, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced that China will contribute $40 billion to set up a Silk Road infrastructure fund.
In a move that has angered China, Manila last year filed a legal challenge against Beijing before a Netherlands-based tribunal, in hopes that the international arbitration court will declare as illegal China's sweeping territorial claim over the resource-rich sea.
Despite the disputes that strained the two Asian nations’ ties, China assured that the Philippines “is definitely part of the 21st century maritime silk road, as well as a member of the China-Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) maritime cooperation.”
ASEAN groups the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar as one regional bloc. China, as well as Japan and the United States, are dialogue partners of the bloc.
“China welcomes the Philippines to be a proactive and constructive partner of the 21st century maritime silk road, which serves the national interests of the Philippines and will contribute to the social and economic development of the Philippines,” the embassy said. — © Provided by Michaela del Callar /LBG, GMA News
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