Duterte meets Chen Min’er, China’s ‘rising political star’- Palace
Credit to Author: CATHERINE S. VALENTE, TMT| Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2019 04:17:26 +0000
PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte welcomed Chongqing party chief Chen Min’er and other members of CPC in a tête-à-tête at the Palace’s Music Room on Monday, according to Malacañang.
“A protégé of Chinese President Xi Jinping,” the Palace said “Chen is seen as a rising political star in China.”
Chen became the Communist Party Secretary of Chongqing, one of China’s leading cities, in 2017.
He also joined the 25-member Politburo, the CPC’s top decision-making body and has served as the head of the provincial department of propaganda and vice governor of Zhejiang province.
Chen became Guizhou’s governor in 2013 before being promoted as provincial communist party secretary.
Accompanying Chen were Ambassador of China to the Philippines Zhao Jianhua, Vice Minister of the International Department-CPC Central Committee Guo Yezhou, Executive Vice Mayor of Chongqing Municipal People’s Government and Secretary General of CPC Chongqing Municipal Committee Wang Fu.
The Filipino officials present were Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) president Sen. Aquilino Pimentel 3rd, Energy Secretary and PDP-Laban vice chairman Alfonso Cusi, Cagayan Economic Zone Authority Secretary and PDP-Laban vice president for international affairs Raul Lambino, Foreign Affairs Acting Secretary Jose Eduardo Malaya 3rd, and Senators Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go and Francis Tolentino.
In March, Duterte also met with a Chinese delegation led by Song Tao, minister of the International Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee.
The President then explained that the Philippine government had nothing to do with the complaint filed against Xi before the International Criminal Court by former Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales and former Foreign secretary Albert del Rosario.
It was during Del Rosario’s time as top Philippine diplomat that the country brought China before a United Nations-backed arbitral tribunal in 2013 for incursions in the country’s exclusive economic zone within the disputed West Philippine Sea (South China Sea).
The tribunal, based in The Hague, invalidated China’s nine-dash line claim over the waters and recognized traditional fishing rights of Filipinos in the Scarborough Shoal, an area where Beijing’s patrol ships are known to have shooed away Philippine fishermen.
The Philippines and China have long sparred over theWest Philippine Sea, but relations have improved considerably under Duterte, who set aside the 2016 landmark legal victory for enhanced ties.