PHL-China working on Chinese President Xi visit to Manila before yearend — Cayetano

Chinese President Xi Jinping may visit the Philippines by yearend, Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano said on Tuesday, as relations between the once hostile Asian neighbors have improved.

“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.”

If it pushes through, this will be Xi’s first visit to the country under the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte.

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

In a dramatic shift in Philippine foreign policy, Duterte took steps to  mend ties with China after he won the presidency in June 2016 while berating the country’s treaty ally, the United States, for criticizing his deadly war on illegal drugs.

An international arbitration tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands announced on July 12, 2016  a sweeping 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 has since ignored the ruling.

The Philippines, China, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan have overlapping claims to the South China Sea, a potentially oil and mineral-rich area, where a bulk of the world’s trade passes through.

Instead of pressuring China to comply, Duterte indefinitely shelved the ruling but promised to raise it with Beijing at a proper time.

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