Hold back-channel talks with China, advises ex-President Ramos

Former President Fidel V. Ramos. AJPRESS PHOTO

Former President Fidel V. Ramos has urged the government not to abandon the option of “back-channel” talks with China to resolve the dispute in the South China Sea as Beijing’s reclamation continues to cause alarm in the international community.

“If the Chinese central government will not listen, its citizens will,” Ramos told reporters after a meeting with current and retired diplomats at the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).

Ramos called on the DFA to continue to do back-channeling talks despite the arbitration case filed in The Hague-based United Nations tribunal aimed at clarifying the Philippines’ maritime entitlements in the South China Sea, which China is claiming almost in its entirety.

“I am very alarmed,” at the massive reclamation work being done by China in the disputed waters, he said.

Ramos noted that ordinary people could lead the back-channeling talks. “Media to media or people to people. The veterans should be the ones leading it. They have seen war and they would not want to see it again,” he said.

The former president hinted that he himself would be able to use his position as chair of the council of advisers of the Boao Forum for Asia, which is held every summer in China’s island province of Hainan.

The high-level forum, which was proposed by Ramos and the leaders of Japan and Australia in 1998, is patterned after the World Economic Forum of Davos, Switzerland, and serves as a platform for leaders from government, business and the academe in Asia and other continents to discuss the most pressing issues in the Asian region and the world at large.

Ramos, however, expressed doubt about the United States’ promises of a greater US presence in the South China Sea to thwart the “de facto control of China” in the region.

“The US presence is very mild in the region. It isn’t like when they had their bases here,” he said.

Ramos said the Philippines needs to have the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (Edca) signed recently with the United States implemented. The agreement’s constitutionality, however, has been questioned in the Supreme Court.