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By Micah McCartney
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Philippine President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. vowed to protect his country's territorial claims on Thursday, against the backdrop of Chinese expansion in the South China Sea.
"I shall never tire of repeating the declaration that I made from the first day that I took office: I will not allow any attempt by any foreign power to take even one square inch of our sovereign territory," Marcos said in an address to Australia's parliament.
China's claim over most of the South China Sea puts it at loggerheads with several Southeast Asian nations, but it is the Philippines under Marcos that is putting up the fiercest resistance. Manila has drummed up international support over the past year by publicizing Chinese encroachment within its international exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
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"We are called upon once again to join forces, together with our partners, in the face of threats to the rule of law, to stability, and to peace," Marcos said, in a thinly veiled reference to Beijing.
The Chinese embassy in the Philippines did not immediately respond to a written request for comment.
Remarking on examples of Philippines-Australia cooperation, he pointed out that aside from Mutual Defense Treaty ally the U.S., Australia the only country with which the Philippines shares a visiting forces agreement.
He also cited joint security exercises the Philippines held with the Australian and the U.S. militaries last year as examples of engagement that supports "free and open" navigation in the well-trafficked waterway.
Australia has had its own run-ins with China's military. In 2022 Canberra complained a People's Liberation Army Air Force jet had unsafely jettisoned chaff that was sucked into the engine of an Australian patrol plane in international airspace.
In November, a Chinese destroyer allegedly injured Australian divers in the East China Sea near Japan.
The South China Sea is critical to regional and global peace, he said. "Prosperity and development [in the region] are anchored in the peace and stability of the Indo-Pacific," which is now under threat, Marcos warned.
The Philippine president also said it is imperative to uphold and defend the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which he dubbed the "constitution of the ocean."
The 1982 convention formed the basis of an international arbitral court's 2016 ruling that largely dismissed China's sweeping claims over featurse within the Philippines' 200-nautical-mile EEZ.
China spurned the proceedings and to this day maintains the decision was illegal, citing unspecified Chinese historical rights to those waters.
Last month, the Philippine government approved $35 billion in spending over the next decade to upgrade its military. This includes the Swedish JAS-39 Gripen jet fighters Manila has said it is close to securing.
President Marcos is in Australia to take part in the Association of Southeast Asian summit, set for March 4-5 in Melbourne.
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