Manila Says Oil, Gas Talks with Beijing Will Resume in May

The Philippines and China restart discussions on potential joint oil and gas development next month, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) in Manila said Tuesday, despite the Philippines’ highest court voiding an oil research deal with China in the disputed South China Sea.

The resumption of talks comes after President Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s visit to Beijing in January that was focused on bolstering economic cooperation between the two countries.

A joint statement on the meeting said negotiations will resume “at an early date” about a 2018 deal on potential joint oil and gas development in the South China Sea. But less than a week after the statement the Philippine Supreme Court annulled a 2005 pact between Beijing, Ha Noi and Manila for tripartite research on petroleum potential in the disputed sea.

However, the DFA announced Tuesday, “in light of the Joint Statement issued during the President’s state visit to Beijing last January 5, on the agreement ‘to resume discussions on oil and gas development at an early date’ the Philippines and China will meet for preparatory talks in Beijing sometime in May”.

“The meeting will discuss parameters and terms of reference,” it added.

The China-Philippine statement read, “on oil and gas cooperation, both sides agreed to bear in mind the spirit of the Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation on Oil and Gas Development between the Government of the People’s Republic of China and the Government of the Republic of Philippines signed in 2018, and agreed to resume discussions on oil and gas development at an early date, building upon the outcomes of the previous talks, with a view of benefiting the two countries and their peoples”.

The two governments in 2018 “decided to negotiate on an accelerated basis arrangements to facilitate oil and gas exploration and exploitation in relevant maritime areas consistent with applicable rules of international law”, the memorandum of understanding (MOU) stated.

The MOU was signed under the then administration of President Rodrigo Duterte, who sought warmer relations with China and in the process often came in a collision course with Philippine traditional ally U.S.

The 2018 pact came two years after the government of Duterte predecessor Benigno Aquino III won against China before the Permanent Court of Arbitration over the South China Sea, parts of which are also claimed by Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam. The July 2016 ruling invalidated Beijing’s overarching “nine-dash line” and historical claims to the South China Sea. Both are “without lawful effect to the extent that they exceed the geographic and substantive limits of China’s maritime entitlements under the Convention”, the judgment read, referring to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

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