Involving powers from outside region will only worsen situation in South China Sea: Philippine scholar

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Involving other powers from outside the region will only worsen the situation in the South China Sea, a Philippine scholar said on Tuesday on the sidelines of the 2nd China-ASEAN Defense Think Tank Exchanges in south China's coastal city of Guangzhou.

The 2nd China-ASEAN Defense Think Tank Exchanges, which opened earlier on Tuesday, brought together more than 70 defense policy officers and defense think tank scholars from China, the 10 ASEAN countries, and Timor-Leste.

In an interview with China Global Television Network on the sidelines of the event, Rommel C. Banlaoi, director of the Center for Intelligence and National Security Studies of the Philippine Institute for Peace, Violence and Terrorism Research, shared his opinion on the ever increasing military presence of the United States in the South China Sea and its impact on the China-Philippines relations and also on the entire region.

"I think our government under the leadership of President Bongbong Marcos Jr. is under pressure by the United States to do that. Militarization of the Philippines under the American umbrella is not good for the Filipino nation. And not only for the Filipino nation is not good for the region because it's militarizing the whole situation. And our decision to host American missiles in Philippine territory, I think, is countering the Southeast Asian principle (Treaty) of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC), and also the principle of peace, friendship and neutrality. Right now the Philippines is no longer neutral. The Philippines is siding heavily with the United States," said Banlaoi.

Banlaoi warned that the Philippines and the United States are playing a dangerous game in the South China Sea.

"I think it's very dangerous being done by the current government in the Philippines to really allow the United States to do these things. It's making the Philippines a dangerous pawn in the ongoing geopolitical rivalries in the region involving the United States. That is why I'm very glad to hear other participants in this exchange that many fellow members of ASEAN are opposed to the militarization of the region. Involvement of the United States will only worsen the situation. Involvement of other regional powers like Japan and Australia will only worsen the situation," he said.

Under the current situation, it is essential for China and the Philippines to work together to ease the tension to avoid fallouts on a larger scale, said Banlaoi.

"Well, we have to take the first step in a thousand-mile journey. And the first step is to rebuild confidence first between the Philippines and China. Because the rebuilding of confidence will lead to the building of mutual trust. And if there is a mutual trust between the two countries then they will start talking about how to proceed to cooperate. And there are many ways to cooperate," he said.

"China has been a friend of the Philippines for a long, long time. They are permanent neighbors. They shared the past with mutual prosperity, and they can also share the future. And during the past, the South China Sea was not the sea that divided the Filipinos and the Chinese. It was the sea that deeply connected between the two peoples. It's a source of our connection," said Banlaoi.

Involving powers from outside region will only worsen situation in South China Sea: Philippine scholar

Active policy measures to boost the economy, the fostering of new quality productive forces and the optimization of measures for the real estate sector will ensure China sustains a robust GDP growth this year, said Dora Liu, deputy CEO for Deloitte China, a global auditing and consulting firm, at the just-concluded Summer Davos forum.

The three-day Summer Davos forum, or the World Economic Forum (WEF)'s 15th Annual Meeting of the New Champions, concluded in Dalian City, northeast China's Liaoning Province, on Thursday.

In an interview with China Global Television Network on the sidelines of the forum, Liu noted that from January to May, the Chinese economy has shown a vigorous growth momentum in manufacturing, consumption and exports as the World Bank has raised the growth estimate for China's economy in 2024 from 4.5 percent to 4.8 percent.

"In the first five months we have seen very strong performance of three sectors. First and foremost, manufacturing, no doubt. Second is service consumption, and third is external demand - you can interpret as exports. From a production side, manufacturing, particularly advanced manufacturing, or high-tech-related manufacturing has achieved a very impressive result," said Liu.

Official data showed that in the first five months, China's industrial output increased 6 percent year-on-year. In May, the output of the high-tech manufacturing sector surged 9.4 percent, 4.4 percentage points faster than the pace of overall industrial output growth.

The data also showed that China's consumption growth picked up pace in May with retail sales expanding 8.6 percent year-on-year, while fixed-asset investment grew 5.6 percent year-on-year in the first five months.

"That indicates we (China) are on the right track of high-quality growth, particularly, the new [quality] productive forces as the top priority of our economic growth. The combination of our measures, the new [quality] productive forces, and the optimization of real estate measures. All in all, I'm very confident that we can achieve more than 5 percent GDP growth in this year," said Liu.

First introduced in 2023, new quality productive forces refer to advanced productivity freed from the traditional economic growth mode and productivity development paths. It features high-tech, high efficiency and high quality.

On May 28, Deloitte hosted the inaugural MNC Future Summit in Shanghai, gathering together over 200 global delegates, including senior executives from renowned multinational companies (MNCs) in China, top industry professionals, and Deloitte's client service lead partners.

The attendees to the summit all agreed that the Chinese economy is too big and too important to ignore, and that despite the complexities, the Chinese market still hold abundant opportunities for global investors, according to Liu.

"The reason behind why we were all so confident of China's economy is exactly as what Premier Li Qiang mentioned and pointed out [at the opening plenary of the Summer Davos forum]. First and foremost, the mega size of our digital economy, the huge amount of user cases and the innovation - pivotal is the power of the innovation hub. Second is the talent pool, and third is China has been keeping advocating the open-door policy and it put words into action," said Liu.

Deloitte deputy CEO confident in China's economic development