Marcos Jr earlier summoned Beijing’s envoy to precise ‘critical concern’ over China’s harassment of a Philippine ship.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has mentioned that his nation “is not going to lose an inch” of territory, remarks that come on the heels of tensions with Beijing within the South China Sea this week that noticed China’s ambassador in Manila summoned to the president’s workplace.

“The nation has seen heightened geopolitical tensions that don’t conform to our beliefs of peace and threaten the safety and stability of the nation, of the area and of the world,” Marcos Jr mentioned in a speech on Saturday.

“This nation is not going to lose an inch of its territory,” he mentioned.

“We’ll proceed to uphold our territorial integrity and sovereignty in accordance with our structure and with worldwide regulation. We’ll work with our neighbours to safe the security and safety of our peoples,” he added.

On Tuesday, Marcos Jr summoned the Chinese language ambassador to precise his “critical concern” over harassment by the Chinese language coastguard of a Philippine Coast Guard vessel in addition to Filipino fishermen within the South China Sea.

The Philippine overseas and defence ministries had mentioned that the Chinese language vessel used a “military-grade laser” towards the Philippine Coast Guard ship, which was on a mission to resupply troops primarily based in Second Thomas Shoal, which is called Ayungin Shoal within the Philippines.

The laser had quickly blinded the Philippine crew on the bridge of the coastguard vessel, the ministries mentioned. China’s overseas ministry earlier within the week had defended its coastguard’s conduct, saying the actions have been in keeping with regulation.

Marcos Jr additionally advised a information convention that he had reminded China’s ambassador that escalating aggression and incursions into Philippine waters by Beijing’s coastguard, navy and maritime militia forces violated an settlement he struck with Chinese language President Xi Jinping final month.

The laser-pointing incident was, he mentioned, inadequate provocation to invoke a mutual defence treaty with the USA, which is a longstanding army ally of Manila.

“If we activated that, what we’re doing is escalating, intensifying the tensions within the space and I feel that might be counterproductive,” the president advised reporters.

Beijing’s embassy in Manila didn’t reply to a request for touch upon Saturday.

China claims giant swaths of the South China Sea as its official maritime territory, a area the place about $3 trillion in ship-borne commerce passes yearly. A global court docket ruling in 2016 discovered that China had no authorized foundation for its claims within the South China Sea.

China’s overseas ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin this week accused the Philippines and the US of partaking in “pure political drama” in taking the South China Sea case to the worldwide court docket of arbitration.

The spokesperson additionally mentioned that China wouldn’t be intimidated by the US.