Marcos says the Philippines will be pulled into any war over Taiwan, despite China's protest
Marcos also told a news conference that the Philippines' coast guard, navy and other vessels defending its territorial interests in the South China Sea would never back down and would stand their ground in the contested waters after the Chinese coast guard on Monday staged dangerous blocking maneuvers and used a powerful water cannon to try to drive away Philippine vessels from the hotly disputed Scarborough Shoal.
It's the latest flare-up of long-simmering territorial disputes in the busy waterway, a key global trade route, where overlapping claims between China and the Philippines have escalated in recent years. Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also lay claims to parts of the contested waters.
Relations between China and the Philippines have been severely strained after Marcos, who took office in mid-2022, and his administration emerged as some of the most vocal critics in Asia of China's increasingly aggressive actions in the South China Sea. The Marcos administration deepened its treaty alliance engagements with the United States and started broadening security alliances with other Western and Asian countries like Japan, Australia, India and some EU member states to strengthen deterrence against Beijing's assertiveness.
China protested last week and accused Marcos of interfering in its domestic affairs and violating its 'One China' policy when he told reporters on the sidelines of a visit to India that there was no way the Philippines could stay out of a possible war in Taiwan because of his country's proximity to it and the presence of about 200,000 Filipino workers on the self-ruled island. China claims Taiwan as its own territory and has repeatedly threatened to annex it, by force if necessary.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry then said through a spokesperson that ''geographic location' and a 'large volume of Filipinos' in Taiwan should not be used as pretexts to interfere in the internal and sovereign affairs of other countries' and urged the Philippines 'to earnestly abide by the One China principle' and 'refrain from playing fire on issues bearing on China's core interests.'
Asked to comment on China's protest, Marcos said he was perplexed and could not understand Beijing's concern.
'I don't know what they're talking about, playing with fire? I was just stating facts. We do not want to go to war, but I think if there is a war over Taiwan, we will be drawn, we will be pulled in whether we like it or not, kicking and screaming,' Marcos said. 'We will be drawn and dragged into that mess. I hope it doesn't happen, but, if it does, we have to plan for it already.'
Separately, Philippine Coast Guard Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese coast guard ships chased and staged dangerous blocking maneuvers on Monday against Philippine coast guard and fishing vessels in the Scarborough Shoal, a rich fishing atoll in the South China Sea off the northwestern Philippines. A Philippine coast guard ship managed to evade being hit by a Chinese coast guard water cannon during the melee, he said.
While chasing a Philippine coast guard vessel, a Chinese coast guard ship accidentally collided with a Chinese navy ship, Tarriela said. The Chinese coast guard ship sustained 'substantial damage' and the Philippine coast guard offered to provide help, including medical assistance, to the Chinese side, he said.
There was no immediate comment from Chinese officials on Tarriela's statements.
Asked if the Philippine vessels would be instructed to withdraw from the disputed shoal, Marcos said his government would never back away from any fight.
'There is no silver bullet that if you fire it, all our problems would be solved,' Marcos said. 'What will happen is, we will continue to be present, we will continue to defend our territory, we will continue to exercise our sovereign rights and despite any opposition from anyone, we will continue to do that as we have done in the past three years.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Metro
40 minutes ago
- Metro
Chinese warship ploughs into own coast guard chasing Phillippine vessel
A Chinese warship rammed into its own coast guard vessel causing sailors to dive overboard. The Philippines said their patrol boat was escorting fishing vessels as they handed out aid to fishermen in the disputed Scarborough Shoal, in the South China Sea. Jay Tarriela, a spokesperson for the Philippine coast guard, also said Chinese patrols blocked them and fired a water cannon. He wrote on X that the Chinese vessel 'performed a risky manoeuvre', causing a collision with the Chinese Navy warship and 'substantial damage' to the coastguard vessel. He said the Philippine vessel immediately offered support, including assistance with recovering men overboard and medical aid for anybody injured. China confirmed a confrontation took place and said the Philippines had 'forcibly intrud[ed]' into Chinese waters. It did not, however, mention the collision. A Chinese Coastguard spokesperson, Gan Yu, said Chinese patrols 'took all necessary measures, including tracking, monitoring, blocking, and controlling, to drive the Philippine vessels away'. Beijing maintains that the area, which is one of the world's busiest maritime routes, almost entirely belongs to China – despite an international ruling this has no legal basis. More Trending Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said at a press conference that the Philippine vessels would 'continue to be present' in the disputed waterway to defend and exercise Manila's rights over what it considers to be part of its territory. The Scarborough Shoal, a chain of rocks and reefs, has been a point of tension between the countries since, in 2012, China seized it from the Philippines. In recent months, hostilities between the two countries have repeatedly spiked over expanded Chinese territorial claims. Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page. MORE: I was ordered out of a swimming pool just for being a migrant – my whole body was shaking MORE: Chikungunya virus: How bad is the China outbreak and could it spread to the UK? MORE: When the world 'likely' ends you can blame these three people, expert says
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
‘Once again, the west turns away': a new book recounts the fall and rise of the Taliban
Jon Lee Anderson is 'not done with Afghanistan', despite having reported on it for more than 40 years, through invasions, occupations, the rise and fall of the Taliban and two great power retreats. 'I always want to go back,' said the New Yorker staff writer. 'It gets into your skin. Afghanistan is an incredible place, an incredible society. It's always like time travel to me, and I knew people there that are larger than life. They stay with you … I may return shortly.' Now 68, Anderson reported from Afghanistan in the 1980s, as Soviet forces lost a 10-year war, and returned in the 2000s, after 9/11 prompted the US to invade. In 2002, Anderson published The Lion's Grave, a well-received book on al-Qaida's assassination of the mujahideen leader Ahmad Shah Massoud two days before the attacks on New York and Washington, and how the US ousted the Taliban. In the foreword to his new book, Anderson writes of that time: 'The mission of the US and its coalition allies appeared to have been a qualified success. The Taliban had vanished into the hills, as had al-Qaida, and a pliant new pro-western regime had been installed.' The new book contains reporting on the 20-year US occupation, its chaotic end, and the Taliban's return. So its title is telling: To Lose a War. One standout chapter comes from 2010. US control had deteriorated. Given no choice, Anderson embedded with a cavalry squadron in Maiwand, in the south. The resulting report, The Day of the Superwadi, is bookended by the deaths of young Americans in IED explosions – an unsparing portrait of military might mired in lethal futility. At the time, Anderson refused to let it be published. He was 'severely disappointed to see that what had happened in Iraq, which I had witnessed firsthand [the subject of his 2004 book, The Fall of Baghdad] had happened in Afghanistan: the suicide blast walls were up, Kabul itself was behind this strange geometry of walls, westerners were cut off from the Afghans'. Anderson 'really disliked' embedding. He felt 'incredibly alienated, displaced. It was exactly in the same area I'd reported from back in the late 80s, and yet I was even displaced from that. I left Afghanistan feeling really nonplussed and telling my editor I didn't think I had a story. And he said: 'No, come on. You can write it.' And I did, and I still had this just, dead feeling. I don't know if it's the only story in the New Yorker's history, or one of very few, where an author has asked the editors to kill it, but I did and they honored that. And I said: 'I feel I have to go back, because this story doesn't feel right.' And I did go back.' In 2011, Anderson embedded again but with Afghan soldiers, too, on the Pakistan border. The result was another powerful essay, Force and Futility. 'I was able to define better what I was seeing,' Anderson said. 'Clearly, I was always a foreigner, an outsider, but I had that experience of being with Afghans.' More than a decade later, putting together To Lose a War, Anderson finally saw the value of the piece he had killed. He 'realized it had an integrity. It helps fill in the blanks. Ultimately, if I have a critical observation, it's that the United States … I mean all of the west, but really it was always US-led … they never really engaged with Afghanistan. That was what I was feeling. I knew it to be just a terrible thing. [The US effort] was doomed because of that.' Anderson provides compelling portraits of American soldiers in extremis. Prey to the shifting realities of Afghanistan, Lt Cols Bryan Denny and Stephen Lusky are driven, idealistic and lost. 'They were honorable men,' Anderson said. 'At the point I was seeing them in the war, the chance to win had passed. They never came out and said, 'This is doomed.' They couldn't: they had young, young boys they were trying to keep alive, and they were doing the best they could. But I had this really strong sense that they knew. 'This was their job. It was an honorable thing. And what was interesting, and I guess among some soldiers you do find this, was this sense of idealism. We tend to objectify them: guns and uniforms and so on. But actually the US military includes a hell of a lot of idealists, many more than you tend to meet in your life. They try to believe in what they're doing, because they're dealing with life and death every day. So I try to acknowledge that but also get to the human story.' Maiwand, where Lt Col Denny served, was home to a physical reminder of Afghanistan's bloody history. About 10 miles (17km) from the US base stood 'a very large, oddly shaped dirt mound … ris[ing] inexplicably up from the flatland'. In 2011, it housed the Afghan national police. It was built thousands of years before, by Alexander the Great. The Americans stayed for 20. Combat operations ended in 2014, under Barack Obama, but the last troops left in 2021, Joe Biden overseeing a withdrawal initiated by Donald Trump. The result was bloody chaos: 13 Americans and at least 170 Afghans killed by a suicide bomber, the Taliban surging back to power, civilians scrambling to get out. Anderson helped Afghans escape. He also went back to report, 'with the central question that we all had, which was: 'Is this the old Taliban or the new Taliban?' We didn't really know. 'In the first missives out of there, we saw our colleagues interviewing guys dressed in the usual Kandahar shalwar kameez [traditional tunic and trousers], and also another group of Taliban dressed up in American special forces uniforms,' he continued. 'And we saw that they no longer were prohibited to deal with the graven image, because they had smartphones. So there was this kind of hope that they were different. 'And so most of my foray involved trying to get in front of Taliban officials, whoever I could, and guys in the field, and ascertain where their heads were at and whether they were, in fact, the new warm and fuzzy or the old astringent and cruel Taliban. 'I came away, especially from the leadership, with apprehension. I didn't feel that they dealt with me honestly … whether it was the guy in Bamiyan or the foreign minister designate or the information minister in Kabul. And so that remains unresolved.' Anderson seems more certain about the fate of Afghan women. 'Pretty much every woman I met who was able to talk with me on their own asked me for help to get out of the country,' Anderson said. 'Not just women. Pretty much everyone I met who was not with the Taliban asked me, whether it was a civil servant, an assistant in the ministries, stewardesses on an airplane. 'I met this group of women I talked to at length, and I followed up with some of them, and they knew what was coming. I don't say it in the book, but I remained in touch with one. She managed to get her family out. First in Mexico, now in the States. I don't know if they're deportable [by Trump] or not. 'One woman said: 'I know what's coming. I know what they're going to do.' And she was right. It's even worse than what one would have expected four years ago. Women have been formally prevented from speaking outside their homes, which are like fortresses. They can't travel without a male companion from their family. I don't even know what they're doing about maternity wards in hospitals now.' Anderson sees few signs for optimism. 'There are factions within the Taliban,' he said of the perennial struggle for power. 'It's not over. Will this come to blows? It could.' Among warring parties is an Islamic State offshoot Anderson called 'Frankenstein's Isis, Isis Khorasan, which is just a more extreme version of the Taliban. 'Afghanistan has never gone to a new stage without spilling blood,' he continued. 'There's a few countries like that. This conceit we have in the west, that you can only get to the next threshold of history through peace negotiations or some kind of civic compact … it doesn't happen in the old world. It doesn't happen in this place. The new stages are always reached through bloodshed. 'And I don't know how you break that dynamic, but this group in power now has not broken it, nor will they break it. They're seeking it with new injustices that will need to be redeemed or avenged. And that's just the way it is. 'And once again, the west turns away, because Afghanistan is a place of shame and failure. But it's still there. Just like it was for the Soviets, just like it was for us, and so on back through time.' To Lose a War is out on Penguin Press on 12 August
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
US-China trade truce deadline looms threatening escalation of economic tensions
A trade truce between the US and China was set to expire Tuesday, threatening an escalation of economic tensions between the world's two largest economies. Chinese officials said they hoped the United States would strive for 'positive' trade outcomes on Monday, as the 90-day detente reached between the two countries last month was due to expire. 'We hope that the US will work with China to follow the important consensus reached during the phone call between the two heads of state... and strive for positive outcomes on the basis of equality, respect and mutual benefit,' foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said in a statement. Chinese and US officials said they expected the pause to be extended after the most recent round of trade talks held last month in Stockholm. Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary, said last week the US had 'the makings' of a trade deal with China and that he was optimistic about a path forward. But Trump has yet to confirm any extension to the pause. 'Tariffs are making our Country Strong and Rich!!!' he wrote on social media on Monday morning. Failure to reach a deal would have major consequences. Trump had threatened tariffs on China as high as 245% with China threatening retaliatory tariffs of 125%, setting off a trade war between the world's largest economies. On Sunday, Trump posted on TruthSocial that China should quadruple its purchases of soybeans from the US to help reduce the trade deficit between the US and China. Currently, US exports to China are subject to tariffs of around 30%, with imports from China subject to a baseline tariff of 10% and a 20% extra tariff in response to fentanyl smuggling allegations against China. Some products are taxed at higher rates. US exports to China are subject to tariffs of around 30% The Federal Reserve and many economists have argued that the tariffs will push up prices in the US. Goldman Sachs strategists calculate that US consumers have absorbed 22% of tariff costs through June 2025. That share is expected to rise to 67% if recent tariffs follow the same pattern as earlier ones. Ahead of the tariff deadline, chipmakers Nvidia and AMD agreed to pay the US government 15% of their revenue from advanced chips sold to China in exchange for export licenses to the market. Stephen Olson, a former US trade negotiator, told Bloomberg of the deal: 'What we are seeing is in effect the monetization of US trade policy in which US companies must pay the US government for permission to export. If that's the case, we've entered into a new and dangerous world.' Associated Press contributed to this story
