(UPDATE) WASHINGTON: The recent spate of aggressive and dangerous maneuvers by China in the West Philippine Sea has been of "great concern" for the United States government, a ranking American official said.

"As I said, we've been watching those tensions with great concern. And, we again urge the PRC (People's Republic of China) to abide by the 2016 ruling," White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby said in a briefing at the Philippine embassy here.

Kirby added that in US President Joe Biden's recent phone conversation with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the American leader "very clearly made our concerns known about Chinese activities in the South China Sea."

John Kirby, Coordinator for Strategic Communications at the National Security Council in the White House, holds a press briefing for the Philippine media delegation at the Embassy of the Philippines in Washington, D.C., United States of America on April 10, 2024.

He reiterated that the conversation between the two leaders will not in any way affect the bilateral meeting of Biden and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and their trilateral meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

Kirby said the historic summit would cover a wide range of areas where the three countries can deepen its partnerships not just in terms of a security framework in the Indo-Pacific, but also in many aspects, including trade, people to people exchanges, and climate change.

He urged Beijing "not to overreact" to the United States and the Philippines' "quadrilateral cooperation" with Australia and Japan in the contested waterway.

The four nations recently conducted a joint maritime patrol in the West Philippine Sea.

"This is about freedom of navigation; it's about adherence to international law; it's about proving the simple point that we and our allies will fly, sail and operate wherever international law permits us to do and it does in the South China Sea, and we did," he added.

He said more maritime patrols will be conducted by the US in Philippine waters.

"And I think you can look forward to additional opportunities for us to conduct those kinds of maritime patrol. But they are really about reconfirming a simple principle about international maritime law in international waters," Kirby said.

Philippine Ambassador to the United States Jose Manuel "Babes" Romualdez said that the Chief Executive remains steadfast in his commitment to protect the country's sovereignty, territorial integrity and the rights of Filipino fishermen in the West Philippine Sea.

At the same time, the President will not cease to explore ways to address the territorial row with China, Romualdez said.

"You know for so many years the Filipino patience has been stretched to the limit. And we are now at the point where [we're not] just going to sit and allow and see our fishermen suffer and not be able to fish in the areas that they've been fishing in — fishing grounds for hundreds of years," Romualdez said in a briefing with the Philippine media delegation covering the trilateral summit in Washington.

"That is what the President is fighting for, that is what we're all fighting for. We just want to be given our right to be able to explore our own environment, our territory, the respect for international law," he said.

The summit will define and shape the future and direction of the Indo-Pacific region, Romualdez said.

"A large majority of countries all over the world are supporting the freedom of navigation, the rule of law, and of course the support that we are getting from the arbitration award given to us by the Unclos (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea)," he said.

"We're not asking, looking for any conflict with any country. In fact, we're reaching out to the Asean region. Again it's a multilateral approach. This is policy that the President has spelled out to all of us. That we want to be able to solve these issues multilaterally, not just because we have a strong ally like the United States, it's more of the fact that all nations, we're expecting all nations to just simply follow the right path and we're hoping that China will look at it in the same way," he added.

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