China to execute fourth Filipino

Despite a personal plea from the president of the Philippines, China has said it will execute a 35-year-old Filipino man convicted in China of drug trafficking.

Philippines media is reporting that the unnamed man is scheduled to be executed in China on Dec. 8, for a conviction on trafficking heroin in Guilin three years ago. The man will become the fourth Filipino executed by China this year, despite ongoing objections from the Philippines government. Newspapers in Manilla said President Benigno Aquino III had written a personal letter to Chinese President Hu Jintao to intervene on this specific case, but the execution is moving forward. The Philippines government said it had exhausted all possible appeals.

China and the Philippines have had increasingly rocky relations this year, in large part due to China's growing reach over the South China Sea.