00:00Mr. President, I would like to ask for you one question.
00:04Mr. President Marcus, next year,
00:07President is going to be the rotating chair of ASEAN.
00:10I wonder how do you plan to balance your relationship
00:13between the United States and China and for President Trump?
00:17Kremlin yesterday said if you are going to Beijing in September,
00:21they wouldn't rule out a meeting between you and President Putin.
00:25Is such a meeting possible?
00:27And how soon do you plan to visit China?
00:30Well, we have a lot of meetings possible.
00:32President Xi has invited me to China,
00:34and we'll probably be doing that in the not-too-distant future.
00:38A little bit out, but not too distant.
00:40And I've been invited by a lot of people,
00:42and we'll make those decisions pretty soon.
00:45Please.
00:46Well, as you say, we are chairing ASEAN in 2026.
00:58There is no need, in a sense, to balance, as you characterize it,
01:04to balance our relationship between the United States and China,
01:08simply because our foreign policy is an independent one.
01:12And we are essentially concerned with the defense of our territory
01:18and the exercise of our sovereign rights.
01:21Now, whether we do this, not alone, we need to do this with our partners.
01:29And again, our strongest partner has always been the United States.
01:33But, of course, we are trying to form coalitions and multilateral relations
01:39so that we, those like-minded nations who share the same values as we do,
01:45who hew to international law, most specifically the UNCLOS,
01:51are present that position very clearly to anyone who has intentions
01:59of unilaterally changing the world order.
02:02And that is where, that is how we are guided in that.
02:06And I don't mind if he gets along with China,
02:09because we're getting along with China very well.
02:12We have a very good relationship.
02:13In fact, the magnets, which is a little complex piece of material,
02:18but the magnets are coming out, you know, very well.
02:21They're sending them in record numbers.
02:24We're getting along with China very well.
02:25And I don't mind if the president dealt with China, you know,
02:30if that's meant, because I think he has to do what's right for his country.
02:33I've always said, you know, make the Philippines great again,
02:36do whatever you need to do.
02:37But you're dealing with China wouldn't bother me at all.
02:40No, well, no.
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