This is the last article you can read this month
You can read more article this month
You can read more articles this month
Sorry your limit is up for this month
Reset on:
Please help support the Morning Star by subscribing here
CHINA’s Foreign Ministry confirmed yesterday that Filipino trawlers would be allowed to fish around the disputed Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea.
Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Beijing had made “proper arrangements on the issue based on the friendship between China and the Philippines,” after Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte raised the issue on his recent state visit to Beijing.
China had banned Filipino fishing boats from the shoal, 123 nautical miles west of the Philippines, after a 2012 incident when the Philippine navy boarded eight Chinese boats.
Mr Duterte’s national security adviser Hermogenes Esperon said: “There was no expressed agreement, but it seems like the traditional rights of our fishermen are being respected.”
The move diffuses tensions in the South China Sea and outflanks US attempts to stir up hostility between the six regional nations with conflicting claims there.
