In his first official visit to China, Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. assured his host that the “Philippines will look out for your people in my country,” and that the “differences” between the two countries would be set aside to deepen bilaleral ties.

Locsin, who was in Beijing from March 18 to 21 with Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea and Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III, also praised China’s Communist Party for providing direction to the country, something that, he said, Western nations lacked.

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“That hand is absent in Western democracy. That direction the Communist Party has supplied, no other institution anywhere in the world could do it,” he said.

Set aside differences

After meeting with State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Locsin said they agreed to set aside “differences we have yet to resolve” to pursue a “mutually beneficial relationship.”

“Thus, you have our assurance that the Philippines will look out for your people in my country as I have seen China look out for our people in yours,” Locsin said in a joint press conference with Wang on Wednesday.

“Without the new China, there will be no prospect whatsoever for the developing world to grow into emerging economies,” he said.

“We would still be, as throughout the second half of the last century … at the mercy of Western markets, which on a whim, can turn us away, as they did throughout the post- and neocolonial period,” he added.

Alluding to the United States, a longtime ally of the Philippines, Locsin said the Philippines and China were “never enemies,” and had “resist(ed) attempts by the Great Powers in the previous century to use our proximity against each other rather than for each other’s benefit.” —Dona Z. Pazzibugan

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