There were no talks on sensitive issues between Chinese President Xi Jinping and former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte during his trip to China last 17 July.
“I went there for a private visit. The invitation to meet President Xi Jinping was limited to government people… Nothing spectacular in the sense that—President Xi Jinping defined our discussions solely on our friendship and our wishes for our countries’ benefit, (it’s) mutual,” Duterte said during the recent episode of his program ‘Gikan sa Masa, Para sa Masa’ over the SMNI News Channel earlier this week.
“I was waiting for the opening of more or less sensitive issues but hindi nangyari ‘yun (It did not happen),” he added.
Duterte also disclosed that his meeting with Xi lasted for about 1 hour and 40 minutes.
“We are discussing just about anything under the sun, except our territorial dispute with them and sometimes there’s what you called — hindi naman (not like) provocative but it will be harder than in the past conflicts in that area where the vessels are colliding. So we stop there,” he said.
Duterte said his last statement was telling Xi Jinping that the “Philippines is not one of the parties in the large conflict between China and the United States.”
“While we are allied with the US, it does not go beyond the state wars on other countries. As a former President, I will not allow my country to be embroiled in a war that is not our own making and of which we have no national interest (that) protects our own,” he said.
Duterte added he only wished that both the Philippines and China would continue their “good relations.”
“So that we can have trade relations, expand on it and perhaps talk things that could benefit our two countries in terms of infrastructure and mutual understanding of peaceful dimensions of our relationship.”
The former president said the meat of his conversation with Xi was to emphasize that the Philippines can’t go to war with any state.
“We cannot afford it because simply we’re just a little — a minor player in the Southeast Asian group of countries. I told him that we would just want to exist peacefully, develop maybe the higher phase to catch up to the rest of the world and have good relations with everybody,” he said.
Duterte, accompanied by former executive secretary Salvador Medialdea, met with Xi at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing. He also visited a college building named after his mother, Soledad Roa Duterte, in Fujian, China.