PRESIDENT Marcos Jr. on Sunday said the member nations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) want China and Taiwan to resolve their “internal dispute” peacefully.
Marcos said that while most of the ASEAN nations continue to recognize and support the “One China Policy,” they share the position that the conflict should be resolved internally by the two countries.
“We are still following the One China Policy but it is, we just want peace… we follow the One China Policy, dapat wala kaming… it’s an internal matter. We believe that Taiwan is part of China, but you must resolve those issues peacefully. ‘Yun lang naman ang hinihingi ng ASEAN (We are still following the One China Policy, but we just want peace… it is an internal matter. We believe that Taiwan is part of China, but the issue must be resolved peacefully. That’s all ASEAN is asking),” Marcos said in an interview with the Philippine media delegation covering his attendance to the ASEAN meeting.
Taiwan was among China’s territories that were occupied by the Japanese during the world war. The 1943 Cairo agreement directed Japan to return all the territories that it acquired from China, including Formosa or Taiwan.
In 1951, Japan formally signed the Treaty of San Francisco and gave up Taiwan which was reaffirmed in the Treaty of Taipei in 1952. It was not indicated to whom Taiwan’s sovereignty belonged, which had already established its own government and leadership.
Marcos also said that “nothing new actually has happened in terms of the Code of Conduct.”
The President said the ASEAN member nations, along with China, just “restated over and over again the need to have a Code of conduct.”
Marcos was among the ASEAN leaders who had pressed on the matter during his interventions in the ASEAN-China Summit and ASEAN-East Asia Summit.
The Philippines and other nations have been calling on China to adhere to the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, which partly states that they “undertake to exercise self-restraint in the conduct of activities that would complicate or escalate disputes and affect peace and stability including, among others, refraining from action of inhabiting on the presently uninhabited islands, reefs, shoals, cays, and other features and to handle their differences in a constructive manner.”
Aside from China and the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam and Taiwan also have claims in the South China Sea.
The President said parties, including China, also reaffirmed their commitment to adhere to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and other international laws.
“Everybody, including the Chinese, says we follow UNCLOS and the international law. So at least that position of ASEAN is clear,” he said.
