ANNING, China–The Philippines is studying a proposal to join the Maritime Silk Road, which is being pushed as a priority initiative at the 8th Pan-Beibu Gulf Economic Cooperation Forum held Thursday in this city.
Danilo Israel, a senior research fellow of the Philippine Institute for Development Studies and a government representative in the forum, said Manila had recently received a copy of the concept paper about the Maritime Silk Road.
The proposed Maritime Silk Road is a cooperation that aims to link all seaports in China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to create a thriving economic maritime corridor.
"We have no position yet. We’re still really in the early stages. The opinion coming from the Foreign Affairs Department is that while the intent is economic, there seems to be some impression that it is also partly security on the part of China,” he said in an interview at the sidelines of the opening of the forum.
Israel said while some countries had doubts on the initiative, others like "Sri Lanka and Cambodia seem to be gung-ho” at the prospect.
"We need to give it very serious and due consideration. We just cannot set this aside for reasons on security. Given that we have ongoing disputes and a number of issues that deal with China, we must tread carefully. The Philippines would like to take all matters related to [this] using the Asean platform,” he said.
He said the Philippines still had no clear idea what China intended to achieve, in the long run, with the proposed maritime cooperation as it also involves navigational links. He said the Philippines sits on a very strategic geo-political location.
"We have just started reviving our relations with the US. The somewhat active relationship could have an effect on how the situation pans out on the geopolitical aspect of things,” he said.
He said as the maritime cooperation partly touched on the maritime access in the South China Sea, the Philippines should engage in meaningful talks with China.
PIDS presented Thursday afternoon, in a closed door meeting with other regional think tanks, an initial study on the economic impacts of the Maritime Silk Road to the Philippines and the Asean.
