Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. turned a routine question and answer session at a regional security forum in Seoul into a pointed confrontation with Beijing this week, after a note delivered mid speech turned out to have come from a Chinese military attache stationed at the embassy in the South Korean capital.
A Note Passed Midfloor Turns Into A Diplomatic Spat
The incident unfolded on September 8 during the 15th Seoul Defense Dialogue, as Teodoro was fielding a question on maritime security and international law from the floor. A forum staff member, apparently mistaking the paper for something from the Philippine delegation itself, walked it up and handed it to him mid answer. It had in fact been passed along by a Chinese military attache from Beijing's embassy in Seoul, according to AsiaNews Network.
Visibly irritated by the interruption, Teodoro read the note aloud to the room before responding. "Is this the right paper to post to me when I am being asked a question on the floor?" he asked, before turning his frustration toward the country he said had sent it, telling the delegation to "show some decency" and adding, bluntly, "Shame on you." He said the move showed disrespect not only to him but to South Korea as the dialogue's host, according to The Chosun Ilbo.
Teodoro then aimed his sharpest line not at Beijing's argument but at the official who had handed him the note in the first place. "You've just done your country a great service," he told the man. "Thank you, and I hope you don't suffer in a gulag for it," he added, according to Yonhap News Agency.
China Insists The Hague Ruling Is Worthless
The note itself restated Beijing's long standing position on the 2016 international arbitration ruling that rejected China's expansive "nine dash line" claim over the South China Sea. It described the tribunal's decision as "nothing but a worthless piece of paper that is illegal, null and void" and insisted that China had "neither accepted nor recognized" the outcome.
Teodoro was unmoved. "That's your claim," he said, before adding with evident sarcasm, "Of course, because you lost." The exchange revived a legal dispute that Manila has treated as settled for nearly a decade, even as Beijing continues to reject its binding force.
Teodoro Calls It Coercion Not A Gray Zone
Teodoro used the moment to widen his criticism well beyond the note itself, accusing unnamed larger powers of "using hostility and unchecked power at the expense of smaller states" and declaring that the Philippines would not "sacrifice its territory or sovereignty." He said Beijing was "throwing UNCLOS on the floor and trampling on it," a reference to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea that underpins the 2016 ruling.
He argued that the language typically used to describe Beijing's actions in the South China Sea no longer fit what Manila has been experiencing. "This is not a gray zone anymore," he said. "This is actual coercion, bullying and aggression."
Chinese Jets Shadow Philippine Patrol Near Panatag Shoal
Teodoro's remarks in Seoul came just days after a separate incident in the waters he was defending. On September 2, a Chinese People's Liberation Army J-10 trainer aircraft intercepted a Philippine maritime domain awareness patrol flight over Panatag Shoal, also known as Bajo de Masinloc, according to the Armed Forces of the Philippines, as reported by Philstar.
AFP spokesman retired rear admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad said the Chinese jet had directed its gunsights, or crosshairs, at the Philippine aircraft during the encounter. He described the maneuver as "coercive and aggressive," intended to intimidate Philippine crews and weaken Manila's resolve to keep patrolling waters it considers part of its territorial sea and exclusive economic zone.
