Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday squarely blamed the inactions of the past U.S. administration for the current crisis in the disputed South China Sea region. The firebrand president claimed that if U.S. had acted diligently, China would not have dared to build so many artificial islands in the contagious maritime territory.

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Duterte openly questioned the freedom of navigation operation that was started under the previous Obama administration, claiming indirectly that the entire operation was a farce.

"You go there in the pretense of challenging them?" he said in reference to the operation. "One single solitary shot, it could lead to an explosion and it could lead to a war and it will be a slaughter." He belligerently accused America of using the Philippine Navy as a shield during the operation, claiming that Americans wanted his country's navy to act on their behalf.

"Why did you not (American Navy), the first instance, go to Chinese working there, building structures there?" he asked and then candidly questioned "Why did you not reprimand them? Why did you not send five aircraft carriers?"

Duterte claimed that it was solely due to the U.S. inactions that today the South China Sea has become such an international issue, affecting all the countries that are party to the dispute.

Duterte also reiterated that change in foreign policy is need of the hour, signaling towards his recent ambitious task of revamping his pro-U.S. foreign policy to the one that is more aligned towards China.

"I decided to change a little bit our foreign policy. Why is it that we are too far from trade and commerce with China?" the Filipino leader said and added that he went to China last year to participate in trade and commerce.

The outspoken president also concluded that China is too militarily strong to force them from stopping the on-going construction activities across several islands. He gave the same excuse for his country's inability to stop the construction of a monitoring station on the Scarborough Shoal.

However, earlier this week Beijing flatly denied that it is constructing a monitoring station on the Scarborough Shoal.

TagsPhilippine and China, Philippine, Rodrigo Duterte, U.S. and China, South China Sea