China has ‘selective amnesia’ — De Lima

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January 15, 2026 | 12:00am

MANILA, Philippines — Opposition Rep. Leila de Lima refuted yesterday a claim by China’s spokesperson that the Philippines has an “overlapping” exclusive economic zone with Beijing in the West Philippine Sea, accusing the foreign power of “selective amnesia.”

The Mamamayang Liberal party-list congresswoman set the record straight that Manila “has no overlapping EEZ with China,” where it is located “around 900 kilometers away from the Philippines at their nearest points between Hainan and Palawan.”

“Calculating a 300-kilometer EEZ for both countries from their respective baselines, that still leaves a healthy 300-kilometer buffer zone between them,” the House deputy minority leader pointed out, reiterating Manila’s jurisdiction over the oil-rich body of water.

De Lima then cited China’s “nine-dash line claim” where originated the maritime dispute, which stretched so far as to eventually extend beyond Beijing’s area and reach Philippine shores, encroaching on its 200-mile EEZ.

“Regardless of the distinction between a territorial sea and an EEZ, it does not really matter because China itself is guilty of the most absurd disregard for legal distinctions when it claims the whole of the South China Sea as its territorial waters,” she remarked.

“There is nothing that blurs the distinction between territorial sea and EEZ more than China’s preposterous and infantile nine-dash line fairy tale that, surprisingly, it keeps on using in serious international legal forums, expecting the rest of the world to be so stupid as to take it seriously,” she said.

De Lima noted that “China conveniently skipped its own history of aggression in the Spratly Islands and Scarborough (Panatag) Shoal in its litany of so-called provocative actions of the Philippines.”

“China has selective amnesia about its island-building in the Spratly Islands,” De Lima said. “China now has seven military outposts in the area, which are the largest among claimant-countries.”

Beijing likewise “failed to mention its own aggressive actions against Philippine fisherfolk and PCG (Philippine Coast Guard) personnel when it purportedly defends an imaginary Chinese coast 1,000 kilometers away from China.”

“It is not the Philippines’ fault when the Chinese ram their own ships while chasing PCG vessels,” she stressed.