Chinese President Xi may visit Philippines by yearend

August 7, 2018

Chinese President Xi Jinping may visit the Philippines by yearend, Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano said on Tuesday.

“We’re now fixing the date. We’re looking at the latter part of the year,” Cayetano told reporters. “Both sides wanted it to happen.”

Asked if Xi’s visit will take place after the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in November, Cayetano said: “Let’s see.”

If it pushes through, this will be Xi’s first visit to the Philippines. 

Cayetano did not say if it will be a state or official visit for Xi, who was invited by President Rodrigo Duterte to come to Manila during their meeting in Beijing in a state visit in October 2016.

‘This has been an invitation from their first meeting. They accepted it right away. But we are finding the right time. When presidents at this level meet there are a lot of preparations and a lot of things that they want to announce,” Cayetano said.

An international arbitration tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands announced on July 12, 2016  a victory for the Philippines for the case it filed against China when it invalidated Beijing’s massive and historical claim over nearly the entire South China Sea. China ignored the ruling.

Duterte indefinitely shelved the ruling but promised to raise it with Beijing at a proper time. DMS