Hi hullopilllw,The Quad meeting ended without a joint statement. Number one bootlicker Australia is outright unnerved at the prospect of sacrificing her economic ties with China to appease US' foreign policy demand. India is still naively weighting how much benefit she extract from US for agreeing to join in. RCEP is going to be singned in this coming November, 230Duderte gave the greenlighht for China and Philippines to co develop gas fields in SCS, Indonesia and Malaysia busy courting Chinese investors. This is the worst possible time to be pushing for an Asian NATO.
Duderte gave the greenlighht for China and Philippines to co develop gas fields in SCS,
The main reason, our Malampaya gas field will run out of oil/gas in 2030, need to look for a replacement ASAP. The agreed sharing is 60/40 in favor of the Philippine. A comparison The Malampaya agreement is 70/30 in favor of Shell with deduction of invest cost/ drilling cost with tax free incentive, if you do the calculation the total Philippine share is less than 12% with a sovereignty guarantee clause if the investment /project doesn't bear fruit. Now who is the one implementing the debt trap story. Such western hypocrisy this narrative is never mention in the western MSM.