BEIJING — President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. will push for Philippines' economic interests in the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit to be held in Shenzhen a few days after hosting world leaders at the Asean Summit in Manila, according to Philippine Ambassador to China Jaime FlorCruz.
In an interview with The Manila Times at the Philippine Embassy here in Beijing on Thursday, FlorCruz said Marcos would "interact" and "meet with other heads of states of the member economies" of APEC.
"And since it's economy based, he also will have a chance to meet other heads of states from other economies. So the president aims to, when he arrives in Shenzhen, to meet with his host, the Chinese hosts, of course, but also to have multilateral and bilateral meetings with other heads of state," FlorCruz said.
APEC is composed of 21 member-economies including China, United States, Japan, Australia, and Russia.
With APEC being an "important platform for multilateral engagements", FlorCruz said that Marcos aimed to discuss economic, political, and geopolitical issues with other APEC member states.
"We hope we can further pursue our national interests, our economic and social, as well as political interests," FlorCruz said.
However, FlorCruz said that there won't be any formal or informal bilateral talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping during the summit, but he expects instead bilaterals with other member states and multilateral formal meetings when the summit begins on November 18.
"The president also hopes to meet with a group of Chinese business executives who maybe already landed in the Philippines or who are very interested, very keen to land businesses in the Philippines," FlorCruz added.
'Productive and multifaceted'
He reiterated that the Philippines maintained its position on its maritime claims in the West Philippine Sea anchored on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the 2016 arbitral ruling.
"We follow the President Marcos' directive, which is what is ours is ours, and we are not giving up an inch of our territory. We stand by strongly, firmly, on our principled position," FlorCruz said.
However, FlorCruz noted that Marcos directed him to have a "productive and multifaceted relations" with China, as the maritime issues "is not the sum total" of its relations.
"We want to maintain that relations. So when we say new equilibrium, we're pursuing both. It's not either or, but we seek a multidimensional and multifaceted relations Multifaceted because while we have differences of maritime issues, we want to push on investment and trade. We want to push people-to-people relations, including tourism," FlorCruz said.
