Malacañang on Wednesday sees better ties with China once Vice President Xi Jinping takes over as the Philippines doesn’t want conflict over Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea).

In a press briefing, Palace spokesman Edwin Lacierda said that they expect that the meetings with Xi Jinping and Vice Foreign Minister Fu Ying will help push the way forward for bilateral relations between the the countries.

“Mr. Xi Jinping was able to convey their message to us. We hope that our relations with China would be better. We have met with Vice Foreign Minister Fu Ying very recently, in fact, we already reported it out. And certainly we look forward to a warming of relations. Certainly, we would like to avoid a situation [like what] we had in Scarborough Shoal,” he said.

“And, after that, the arrival of Vice Foreign Fu Ying and [Interior] Secretary [Manuel] Mar Roxas [2nd]’ meeting with Mr. Xi Jinping was certainly a welcome development for us. We’re able to convey the President’s message to the leadership of the Chinese Politburo,” he added.

Lacierda also said that the Philippines have several levels of exchanges with China, which needs to be improved.

“We have several levels of relations with China. We hope to improve on all those levels of exchanges: trade, tourism, cultural exchange. And, again, like [what] we have always maintained, the issue on the West Philippine Sea is not the end-all and be-all of our relations with China,” he added.

Earlier, Vice President Xi Jinping is set to take over a country that in just a few decades has gone from a famine-wracked basketcase to the world’s second-largest economy, and now has growing diplomatic heft and military reach as well.

Xi, 59, will succeed President Hu Jintao as the general-secretary of the 82-million-strong Communist Party at its 18th congress, which starts on Thursday in the Great Hall of the People on Beijing’s vast Tiananmen Square.