China is not aware of any plan to discuss the South China Sea at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting, to be held in Manila next week, China's vice foreign minister said on Tuesday, as tensions escalate in the waters.
Li Baodong, China's vice foreign minister, told a briefing in Beijing on Tuesday that "there is no plan to discuss the South China Sea issue."
"APEC is mainly a platform to discuss economic and trade cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region," he said, according to an AFP report "There is consensus on this point."
His statement came after a Filipino official from the APEC organizing committee said the Philippines would not raise the issue at the meeting.
On Tuesday, Philippine President Benigno Aquino III pledged a warm welcome for China's leader Xi Jinping as he hosted rare talks with visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Manila, AFP reported.
Aquino said that the APEC summit would focus on Asia-Pacific regional economic cooperation and would not touch on the South China Sea issue, according to the Xinhua News Agency.
Wang's trip to Manila was to compare notes on and make preparations for Xi's planned visit to the Philippines for the APEC meet. Both sides will also exchange views on how to improve the relationship between China and the Philippines, Hong Lei, a spokesperson for China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told a daily briefing on Monday.
The APEC meeting, to be held from November 17 to 19, includes the US, China, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia and Canada, and together accounts for 57 percent of global production and 46.5 percent of world trade, Reuters reported.
Victim mentality
Analysts warn that if the Philippines tries to bring up the South China Sea issue at the meeting, it would risk harming other countries' interests.
Manila always spares no effort to raise the South China Sea issue at multilateral meetings, internationalizing the issue and winning sympathy from other countries while portraying itself as a victim of China's bullying, Liu Feng, an expert on South China Sea studies, told the Global Times.
Citing the ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting and East Asia Summit as examples, Liu said meetings that focus on multilateral economic cooperation are not the platform to discuss bilateral disputes.
The tactics the Philippines has adopted have made China stay alert to this APEC meeting where political and security issues should not become major topics, Xu Liping, a senior fellow of the National Institute of International Strategy at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.
Marciano Paynor, head of the host's APEC meeting organizing committee, said Monday the maritime row would be off the agenda.
"I will reiterate that when we meet at APEC, it's all economic issues and we do not take up bilateral, specific bilateral issues in APEC," Paynor was quoted by AFP as saying.
"The pressure would be unbearable for Aquino if China, a major economy in the Asia-Pacific region, were to refuse to attend the APEC meet due to Manila's attempt to internationalize the South China issue again," Xu said.
Other countries that participate in the meeting and have frequent economic exchanges with China would suffer huge losses caused by Manila if China were not to come, Liu said.
Clarify matters
Xi is the last APEC leader confirmed to attend the meeting in the Philippines, local news site abs-cbnnews.com reported on Monday.
China's confirmation at the last minute gave the Philippines a tacit warning that the host should not bring up the South China Sea issue, Liu said.
Xu said Wang's visit ahead of the meet indicated that China wanted to clarify matters with the Philippines.
However, experts warned that Manila might refer to the issue on other occasions.
Xu said the APEC meeting includes several bilateral talks and small-scale multilateral talks where the issue may be touched upon.
"Local media will probably hype up the South China Sea issues during the meeting; non-governmental groups might lodge protests over not referring to the issue," Liu added.