Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte speaks during his departure ceremony before a visit to Myanmar at Davao city international airport in Davao on Sunday. Duterte, however, warned that he would invoke a July 12 arbitration ruling that invalidated China's territorial claims in the South China Sea if the Chinese "start to tinker with the entitlement," apparently meaning when Beijing starts to tap the offshore area's resources. "We cannot stop China from doing his thing, the Americans were not able to stop it," Duterte said in a news conference at the airport in southern Davao city before flying to Myanmar. It will also be a defiance of last year's ruling by an arbitration tribunal in The Hague that invalidated China's territorial claims in the South China Sea on historical grounds. Duterte met Chinese President Xi Jinping and other top officials in a visit to Beijing last year but did not raise the July 12 arbitration ruling.

Source: Bangkok Post March 19, 2017 11:48 UTC