New findings on Chinese financing in the Philippines are challenging the assumption that Beijing reduced its funding under President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr because of worsening tensions in the South China Sea. Instead, Chinese capital had continued to support Filipino businesses in recent years, including a US$3.9 billion syndicated loan to telecommunications company Dito Telecommunity in 2023, the largest ever China-backed private-sector loan to the Philippines, AidData, a US-based research...
Chinese scholars have drawn fierce pushback from Manila by claiming Beijing should have sovereignty over the Batanes Islands, while analysts said the academic assertions served as a warning shot amid Japanese-Philippine maritime border talks. The archipelago, located between Taiwan and the northernmost tip of the Philippine island of Luzon, was the focus of an academic discussion on June 30 at Jinan University in Guangzhou. At the meeting, scholars from different institutions, including the...
Beijing has denounced a “thoroughly illegal” international tribunal that ruled against its expansive claims in the South China Sea, with a senior diplomat describing it as a “thorn” in the side of its relationship with the Philippines on the 10th anniversary of the decision. In an article published in People’s Daily on Sunday, Jing Quan, the ambassador to the Philippines, said clearing its “lingering toxic legacy” was a matter of the utmost urgency. “The most important task for Manila today is...