Beijing: Won’t ‘bully’ neighbours over South China Sea

PTI

MANILA, January 17

China will not use its strength to “bully” its smaller neighbours, including the Philippines, its Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Monday, as he highlighted the importance of settling disputes in the South China Sea peacefully.

“Stressing only one side’s claims and imposing one’s own will on the other is not the proper way for neighbours to treat each other and it goes against the oriental philosophy of how people should get along,” Yi, Chinese government’s top diplomat, said at a virtual forum organised by China’s embassy in Manila and a local advocacy group.

His remarks come less than two months after the Philippines condemned China’s blocking of a military resupply ship in the South China Sea, which prompted a warning from the United States.

China’s extensive territorial claims in the South China Sea, which it says are based on historic maps, have put it at odds with Brunei, Malaysia, Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam, which have competing claims to islands and features.

China has been accused by Western countries of aggression and provocations by deploying hundreds of coast guard and fishing vessels in the exclusive economic zones of its neighbours, including the Philippines, far off its mainland. — Reuters

China’s birth rate falls further

Beijing: China’s population grew by less than half a million last year to 1.41 billion as the birth rates fell for the fifth consecutive year, stoking fears of a looming demographic crisis and its adverse impact on the world’s second largest economy. At the end of 2021, China’s population on the mainland grew to 1.41 billion from 1.41 billion in 2020.

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