CHINA’s unilateral sanctions against Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto “Gibo” Teodoro Jr. may look, at first glance, like another episode in the now-familiar diplomatic boxing match between Manila and Beijing. China says Teodoro has repeatedly made irresponsible remarks. Manila calls the sanctions an unfriendly act. Teodoro shrugs it off and vows to continue defending the Philippines’ maritime rights and claims in the disputed waters of the South China Sea (SCS) vis-à-vis China. The political choir then sings its predictable parts: sovereignty, sovereign rights, intimidation, international law, West Philippine Sea (WPS), rules-based order, and so on.
But from my vantage point, one of the primordial factors that may have triggered China’s unilateral sanctions against Gibo is not only his sharp rhetoric against China on SCS-related issues and the so-called selective arrests of Chinese citizens in the Philippines, but also the broader strategic direction of Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s administration, particularly its growing involvement in matters that touch on the Taiwan question.
Maritime delimitation talks
The reported launch of Japan-Philippines maritime delimitation talks is not a minor bureaucratic exercise in cartography. It is not simply two friendly countries taking out rulers, maps and legal textbooks to draw lines on the sea. In geopolitics, maps are never innocent. Lines drawn on water can become lines drawn in blood if states miscalculate their meaning, timing and audience.
China’s reaction was telling. Zhang Han, spokesman for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, reportedly stressed that the waters that Japan and the Philippines intend to delimit are located east of Taiwan, where China claims an exclusive economic zone and continental shelf. From Beijing’s standpoint, Japan and the Philippines bypassing China to launch so-called delimitation talks seriously infringes on China’s maritime rights and interests, violates international law and basic norms governing international relations, and is therefore illegal and invalid.
One does not need to agree with every Chinese formulation to understand the seriousness of the signal. For China, Taiwan is not a normal foreign-policy issue. It is not merely a security concern. It is not simply one item in a diplomatic agenda. Taiwan is a core interest of China. Taiwan is a red line. Taiwan is, in Beijing’s official view, an internal affair of China.
The Marcos administration should know this very well. If it does not, then the problem is ignorance. If it does, then the problem is recklessness. Neither is comforting.
To be clear, defending the Philippines’ sovereignty and sovereign rights claims, and legitimate interests in the disputed SCS is not only justified; it is the duty of any Philippine government and every Filipino. The Philippines has every right to protect its fishermen, its maritime entitlements, its energy resources, its reefs, its shoals, and its dignity as a sovereign state. No Filipino government should be silent when it comes to the country’s lawful rights under international laws. But the Taiwan question is a different matter altogether.
Foreign policy adventurism
The Philippines should not dip its fingers into the Taiwan issue, especially not in ways that can be interpreted as coordination with Japan, the United States, or the DPP’s related strategic designs against mainland China’s considered red line. That is not prudence but a dangerous foreign-policy adventurism.
The distinction must be made clear: Defending Philippine maritime rights and entitlements in the SCS is a national interest; meddling in the Taiwan question is strategic overreach. One is defending maritime rights and entitlements, the other is entanglement.
And this is where the Marcos administration’s foreign policy becomes increasingly problematic. It appears to be moving beyond the legitimate defense of Philippine maritime rights and into the dangerous architecture of a US-Japan-Philippines security alignment whose strategic shadow falls directly across the Taiwan Strait. The Philippines is no longer merely defending its claims to Ayungin, Scarborough or the WPS. It is increasingly being positioned as a forward strategic outpost in a possible Taiwan contingency. This should alarm every serious Filipino.
Note that the Philippines’ official position has long been adherence to the One-China policy. This means the Philippines does not recognize Taiwan as a sovereign state. It may maintain economic, trade, tourism and people-to-people relations with Taiwan, but it should not act in ways that suggest political, military or strategic alignment with Taiwan against mainland China.
Signal
A small or middle power like the Philippines does not survive by relying on applause from allies without even the guarantee of actual protection against consequences. Washington may praise Manila. Tokyo may court Manila. Some Western think tanks may celebrate the Philippines as a frontline state, but if tension explodes in the Taiwan Strait, it is not Washington’s cities that sit across the Bashi Channel. It is not Tokyo’s fishermen who will be first to feel the shock waves in Northern Luzon. It is Filipinos.
The tragedy of the current moment is that Philippine foreign policy is being sold to the public as courage, when much of it may simply be strategic exposure. There is a difference between standing firm and standing in the line of fire because someone else handed you the flag and pointed to the battlefield.
China’s sanctions against Gibo Teodoro should therefore be read as a political warning. The message is broader. Beijing is signaling that it sees the Marcos administration’s defense posture, especially its deepening alignment with the US and Japan, as crossing from WPS assertion into Taiwan-related provocation.
Whether one likes China or not, that message should not be dismissed lightly. Diplomacy is not a karaoke bar where one can simply sing louder when the room gets tense. States must listen to signals.
Conclusion
The problem with Gibo is not that he defends Philippine sovereignty and sovereign rights. On that point, he has every right and duty to speak. The problem is that when his rhetoric becomes so militarized, so ideologically charged, and so closely aligned with the strategic language of Washington and Tokyo, the Philippine national interest starts to look like an accessory to someone else’s containment project.
A defense secretary must defend the country, not audition as the regional spokesman of a geopolitical bloc.
China, for its part, should also exercise prudence. Sanctioning a sitting Philippine defense secretary and including his family may satisfy Beijing’s need to send a strong message, but it also risks hardening Filipino public sentiment against China.
But Manila should not mistake China’s reaction for proof that Manila’s foreign policy and strategy are wise. Sometimes, both sides can be wrong in different ways. China may be heavy-handed, but the Philippines may still be strategically careless. The art of statecraft is not to choose between arrogance and recklessness. It is to avoid both.
The Philippines must be firm in defending its national interest and maritime rights, yes. But firmness without prudence is not courage. It is bravado. And in this dangerous neighborhood, bravado is not foreign policy. It is a fuse.
