Rodrigo Duterte has unilaterally declared that the disputed Scarborough Shoal will become a fishing-free zone, a move seemingly aimed at further defusing tensions with China that analysts warned could backfire.
“The president has decided to declare that as a sanctuary,” Hermogenes Esperon, Mr Duterte’s national security adviser, said on Sunday after the Philippine leader met Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at the Asia-Pacific summit in Lima, Peru.
The shoal, and the fish-rich, 150 sq km lagoon that lies within, is at the centre of a long territorial dispute between Manila and Beijing, with China forcing Philippine fishing boats out in 2012.
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