HEADLINE: Duterte dares US: Declare war on China and we will join you
“Now I say, you bring your planes, your boats to South China Sea. Fire the first shot and we are just here behind you. Go ahead, let’s fight . . . We have an RP-US pact, so let us honor it. Do you want trouble? OK, let’s do it”
President Duterte
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MANILA, Philippines — In another rant against the United States and critics of his handling of the maritime dispute between Manila and Beijing, President Rodrigo Duterte dared Washington to declare war on China.
He lambasted his critics, particularly Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, former Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario and former Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales for criticizing his China policy.
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No fan of Obama
“If war breaks out, I will drag them out,” he said in a speech on Friday night at the opening of Chen Yi Agventures Rice Processing Center (CYA-RPC) in Alangalang town, Leyte province.
The President has been critical of the United States, particularly former US President Barack Obama, for criticizing his bloody war on drugs. When he assumed office in 2016, he announced he would be moving away from US influence and would be boosting ties with China.
He later set aside the July 2016 ruling by the international arbitral court that invalidated China’s expansive claims over the South China Sea to warm ties between Manila and Beijing in order to get more Chinese aid and investments. The Philippines brought the challenge against China in 2013.
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Flashpoints
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The South China Sea is one of the flashpoints in the US-China relations, which include a trade war, US sanctions and Taiwan.
China and the United States have repeatedly traded barbs in the past over what Washington says is Beijing’s militarization of the strategic waterway by building military installations on artificial islands and reefs. The Pentagon recently claimed that China test fired missile.
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