The foreign minister of Panama, Javier Martínez-Acha, pilloried the Chinese Communist Party during remarks at the Organization of American States (OAS) on Tuesday, revealing that Beijing had pressured the country’s president to unconstitutionally override a Supreme Court ruling to benefit Chinese shipping companies.
Martínez-Acha condemned the Chinese government for refusing to respect the constitution of Panama and suggested that the country is attempting to pressure conservative Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino into defending Chinese interests by unnecessarily detaining and “inspecting” Panamanian-flagged ships in Chinese ports.
He urged China to “de-escalate” after a belligerent rant to the OAS General Assembly by Chinese Ambassador Xie Feng in which the latter demanded that Panama “correct its mistakes” and protect the “interests of Chinese businesses,” presumably over respecting its own principle of separation of powers.
The dramatic exchange between Xie and Martínez-Acha occurred during the annual OAS General Assembly on Tuesday, hosted this year by Panama City. China has enjoyed “permanent observer” status at the OAS since 2004 and thus is allowed to participate in the Assembly. China’s OAS Ambassador Xie Feng used his time before the international body to complain that Panama’s Supreme Court of Justice ruled in January that two contracts awarded to a subsidiary of a Chinese-linked company that allowed the corporation to control both sides of the Panama Canal was unconstitutional. The Panamanian government moved rapidly to implement the ruling, restoring its sovereignty over the critical maritime passage.
In response, the Chinese government condemned the ruling as “political” and pressured the Mulino government to somehow overrule the Supreme Court, which is not constitutionally allowed in Panama. The Chinese government also began large-scale detentions of Panamanian-flagged ships at its ports following the court ruling, which both American and Panamanian officials decried as undue pressure.
Before the OAS, Xie, the Chinese ambassador, “urged the Panamanian side to correct its mistakes and protect the legitimate and lawful rights and interests of Chinese businesses,” according to the Chinese state media newspaper Global Times.
“China has conducted port state control inspections on incoming vessels in accordance with Chinese laws and international conventions, which do not target any specific country or flag and are fully legitimate,” Xie claimed, accusing Panamanian ships of crashing into “fishing vessels in Chinese waters” and killing individuals. The Global Times did not offer any examples of such deadly incidents, nor did it contend that Xie had done so at the OAS.
Xie concluded by again complaining about the Supreme Court ruling, calling it “abrupt” and “politically driven.”
Martínez-Acha took the unusual step of requesting a formal rebuttal to Xie’s remarks, which he specified was given in his capacity as foreign minister of Panama and not as chairman of the OAS General Assembly.
Martínez-Acha clarified that he wished to make their disagreements a private discussion, but “I have to highlight some things that you have described in an inexact way.”
“My country is a democracy. My country has separation of powers. Your country is different from mine,” he began his rebuttal. “I have to tell you that Panama respects its diplomatic relations with all countries – those here present, of course – but my country and my government and my president respect much more our constitution.”
“The Supreme Court of Justice has a clear majority of justices named by previous governments,” he noted, highlighting the lack of influence the executive branch has over the judiciary.
“Your representatives in our country do not understand the democratic system of Panama,” he continued. “They asked me various times to interfere with the decision of an organ with separation of powers to undo a [court] ruling, which the only thing my government can do with it is obey it.”
Martínez-Acha then addressed the disproportionate number of seizures and inspections of Panamanian ships in China, observing that the mysterious alleged phenomenon of rogue Panamanian ships crashing into other vessels and wantonly killing people does not appear to be happening anywhere else, including countries neighboring China.
“Those inspections and detentions do not happen in the numbers that we see in your ports, in ports near your country — not in Japan, not in South Korea, not in Vietnam, not in the Philippines,” he noted. “The number, the increase, is substantially higher than what existed before the Supreme Court of Justice ruling.”
“My country does not wish to enter in a superpower rivalry situation. Panama has an independent and respectful foreign policy,” he concluded. “You must understand that my president has a constitutional obligation to defend the interests of Panama just as you have in your country. I invite you to de-escalate, I invite you to speak respectfully, but I invite you to respect my constitution the way I respect yours.”
Asked about his statements later, Martínez-Acha told reporters that he “simply clarified” points that Xie had made that he described as not “reflect[ing] the dynamic or the functioning of our democratic institutions.”
“Our system is different than theirs, our democracy is different from the system that they have to exert political power,” he reiterated. “That said, I invited the delegate to converse in a respectful way … We are willing to meet where they would wish to begin to renovate the most favored nation status agreement, the transport, and also to address the issue of the detentions and inspections of the Panama-flagged tankers. That yes, they say that they are following a technical criteria; we respect that, but the numbers tell us that this technical criteria is above what the historical averages.”
President Mulino weighed in following the tense exchange at the OAS, offering his top diplomat “total backing.”
“I totally back what Foreign Minister Martínez-Acha expressed today at the [OAS],” he wrote in a statement on social media. “The defense of our interests is one and indivisible.”
China has struggled throughout the past year to galvanize anti-Panamanian sentiment in the Americas as its aggressive attacks on regional nations and a wave of conservative electoral victories have fostered distrust of the Chinese Communist Party. In April, the administration of President Donald Trump – alongside the governments of Bolivia, Costa Rica, Guyana, Paraguay, and Trinidad and Tobago – issued a joint statement supporting Panama in the face of the bullying of its ships in Chinese waters.
“Panama is a pillar of our maritime trading system, and as such must remain free from any undue external pressure. Any attempts to undermine Panama’s sovereignty are a threat to us all,” the statement expressed.
American Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who made his first overseas trip as top diplomat to Panama, separately offered support to Panama in a statement at the time.
“The sovereignty of our hemisphere is non-negotiable. We are deeply concerned by China’s targeted economic pressure after the Balboa & Cristóbal terminals decision,” Rubio wrote in April. “We stand in solidarity with Panama. Any attempts to undermine Panama’s sovereignty are a threat to us all.”