The Philippines does not want to go to war but will never order its vessels to withdraw from contested areas, the country’s president said following yet another coastguard encounter with China near Scarborough Shoal.
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“I don’t know what they are talking about. ‘Playing with fire’? I was just stating facts,” Marcos said.
“Inevitably, despite our first wish to avoid any confrontation with anybody anywhere, [a] war over Taiwan will drag the Philippines kicking and screaming into the conflict. That is what I was trying to say. That’s why I don’t understand [Beijing’s response],” he said.
In an interview with Indian media outlet Firstpost on Wednesday, Marcos said there were “many, many Filipino nationals in Taiwan and that would be immediately a humanitarian problem” if there was a conflict in the Taiwan Strait.
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“To be very practical about it, if there is confrontation over Taiwan between China and the United States, there is no way that the Philippines can stay out of it simply because of our physical, geographic location,” he was quoted as saying.
