An interview that has rattled China: What Philippine President Marcos told Firstpost on Taiwan question

The Philippines President Ferdinand R Marcos Jr’s five-day state visit to India ends on Friday. During the first state visit of President Marcos, India and the Philippines officially elevated their ties to a strategic partnership level. This marked a historic upgrade in the bilateral relationship of the two countries, which face challenges of similar nature from a common power, China.

While Marcos met Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit, discussing bilateral, regional and global issues as the world scampering to find a new balance following US President Donald Trump’s multi-layered disruptive moves, the two countries held delegation-level talks in New Delhi to deepen cooperation in defense, trade, maritime security, and digital transformation areas. The two countries emphasised maintaining a rules-based Indo-Pacific.

PM Modi hailed the meeting with Marcos and the elevation of India-Philippines ties to strategic partnership as “historic”. He said the new understanding lays our sectoral priorities through a Plan of Action for 2025–29 for the next four years.

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However, beyond bilateral talks which China was watching closely, what has rattled Beijing is an interview that Firstpost did with Marcos. His remarks that it would be difficult for the Philippines to “stay out of” a long-anticipated Taiwan conflict given China’s repeated assertion that a military option is on the table to annex the island nation.

China has reacted sharply to Marcos's comments, fuming over his assertion that the Philippines can’t stay out of a Taiwan conflict if China invades the island nation.

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Here’s what Marcos said while speaking to Firstpost’s Managing Editor Palki Sharma:

Question: Another flash point in the neighbourhood is Taiwan, and most experts fear that Beijing will invade Taiwan before the end of this decade. If that were to happen while you’re still in power, would you be open to allowing the US to use resources and bases in the Philippines to defend Taiwan, or would you rather stay out of it?

Marcos: To be very practical about it, if there is a confrontation over Taiwan between China and the United States, there is no way that the Philippines can stay out of it, simply because of our physical geographic location. To understand how close Taiwan is to the Philippines, the large city of Kaosong in Taiwan is a 40-minute flight away from the capital of my province in northern Philippines in Lag. That’s how close it is.

If you think about it, if there is an all-out war, then we will be drawn into it. I assure you, with the greatest hesitation, but again, we will have to defend our territory and our sovereignty.

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Furthermore, there are many Filipino nationals in Taiwan, and that would be immediately a humanitarian problem because we will have to get involved — we will have to go in there or find a way to go in there and bring our people home, as we do whenever they find themselves in areas of conflict. That, for me, would be the most considerable concern for us, at least in the early days.

That’s why I say we would immediately mobilise everything that we could to bring our people out. That’s not an easy thing to do, considering that you are in the middle of a combat zone. So it would not be a small problem.

You may watch the full interview here: