In a veiled reference to China’s rising maritime assertion, Japan and the Philippines agreed Thursday to resolve territorial disputes in the South China Sea through peaceful means and that the use of coercion or force is intolerable.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte vowed to work with Japan for the peaceful resolution of disputes based on the rule of law at sea during his talks with Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida in Davao City in the southern Philippines, according to a Japanese official who attended the meeting.
Duterte said that the July 12 decision by the Hague-based and U.N.-backed Permanent Court of Arbitration, which rejected China’s expansive claims in the South China Sea as having no legal basis, should be respected.