China snubs Philippine president over visit to Nanning expo
President urged to visit China at more conducive time; trade minister to go instead
China has asked Philippine President Benigno Aquino to postpone a visit next week for the opening of a trade fair, Manila said yesterday, an unprecedented snub by Beijing as relations sour over territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
"China's request was for the president to visit China at a more conducive time," Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman Raul Hernandez told the South China Morning Post in reply to whether Aquino had been specifically asked to drop his China visit.
Hernandez said Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi relayed the request to Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario on Wednesday night, hours after President Aquino himself announced his trip to Nanning to head the delegation to the China-Asean Expo, where the Philippines is this year's "country of honour".
Trade Secretary Gregory Domingo will represent the president at the September 3-6 event, said Hernandez, who was among Asean foreign ministers in Beijing for a meeting with the Chinese foreign minister.
China's Foreign Ministry told Reuters it had never invited Aquino in the first place.
In a statement to the Post, the Foreign Ministry added: "The Philippines should work with China to remove difficulties and disturbances, and make concrete efforts for resuming the healthy and stable development of the Sino-Philippine relationship."
