(Manila Comprehensive) The Philippine Minister of Defense Torodro said that the Philippines is establishing a defense alliance with the United States and other security partners to launch resource exploration in the South China Sea.
He said in an interview with Bloomberg on Wednesday (January 17) that resource exploration was a "part of a package plan" for the Philippines to fight for territorial strategies, and it was stating that it was imminent.However, he did not disclose the details of how to expand resource exploration.
Torodo's conversation shows that resource exploration is likely to be another explosion point for the Philippines and China to dispute in the South China maritime territory.
Almost all oil demand in the Philippines depends on imports.As the main local natural gas fields are almost exhausted, Manila has been trying to start exploring energy in the collar sea, and the South China Sea has rich oil and natural gas reserves.However, there was a dispute between China and the Philippines from time to time in the South China Sea, which blocked the exploration of the Philippines.
Torodo believes that Beijing's agenda in the South China Sea may be out of energy."They want to control everything, or make themselves the only joint venture partners who make themselves exploratory or mining resources in this region."
He emphasized that the Philippines will not allow any joint exploration activities that do not recognize Manila to develop these resources."Our task is to ensure national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and to ensure that the Philippines can minimize and unobstructed mining resources as much as possible."
For Torodo's conversation, a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs Mao Ning on Thursday (18th) emphasized in response to media questions that the Philippines developing alliances with other countries must not damage the legal of China in the South China Sea.rights and interests.
She said: "For disputes in the sea, we always insist on setting up negotiations and negotiation and peaceful solution, and through formulating rules and establishing mechanisms to control disputes. Before the dispute is resolved, we jointly develop resource exploration and mining."
