Carpio on Xi claim: 15th century Chinese explorer never visited PHL

Contrary to a claim by Chinese President Xi Jinping, Chinese explorer Zheng He never visited the Philippines, Supreme Court Acting Chief Justice Antonio Carpio said.

Xi, who capped a two-day state visit to the country on Wednesday, earlier wrote that Zheng made "multiple visits" to Manila Bay, the Visayas and Sulu over 600 years ago.

"Zheng He never visited the Philippines," Carpio, a leading advocate for the Philippines' maritime claims, wrote.

In his 2017 e-book, "The South China Sea Dispute: Philippine Sovereign Rights and Jurisdiction in the West Philippine Sea," Carpio said accounts of Zheng visiting the Philippines were "certainly unfounded, as pointed out by Prof. Hsu Yun-Ts'iao."

"When Prof. Chiao-min Hsieh of the Catholic University of America wrote that Zheng He supposedly visited the Philippines, he thought Chan Cheng, which appeared in accounts written by members of Zheng He's expedition, was an old Chinese name for the Philippines," the senior justice wrote.

"However, the word Chan Cheng was actually the Ming Dynasty name for a Malay state in Indo-China."

The eunuch Admiral Zheng He was sent by China on seven voyages to Malacca, Thailand, Sri Lanka, India, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Kenya from 1405 to 1433, Carpio wrote in his e-book. The expeditions, he said, were aimed at promoting trading and projecting the Ming Dynasty's power.

Now a candidate for chief justice, Carpio was part of the legal team that argued Manila's arbitration case before the Permanent Court of Arbitration.

The Hague-based tribunal ruled in favor of the Philippines in 2016, when it decided that China has no legal basis to claim historic rights to resources falling within its so-called "nine-dash line."

However, Duterte said he will temporarily set aside the landmark ruling to avoid confrontation with the Asian powerhouse.

Xi's historic state visit to the Philippines resulted in the signing of 29 agreements, including a memorandum of understanding on cooperation on oil and gas development in the South China Sea. — RSJ, GMA News