The Philippines’ Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. hit out at China after a memo asserting Beijing’s position over their longstanding maritime dispute was delivered to him while he was onstage at an international forum.
The incident was captured on a live feed as the secretary was responding to a question about gray zone coercion in the South China Sea during a panel discussion at the Seoul Defense Dialogue on Tuesday.
Teodoro read the memo line by line and accused the person who wrote it of lacking basic decency. “This is not gray zone any more. This is actual coercion, bullying and aggression,” he said, speaking next to the South Korean and Czech defense ministers. He added in Filipino, “Have some shame.”
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment.
The unusual exchange comes months after China imposed sanctions on Teodoro, accusing him of making remarks that damaged bilateral ties and of raising tensions in a relationship already strained by territorial disputes. Teodoro is the most senior Philippine official known to have been sanctioned by Beijing.
The memo said China neither accepts nor recognizes a ruling under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, known as Unclos, that acknowledges the Philippines’ claims over part of the disputed waters, according to Teodoro.
“I will keep this paper as a memento of how desperate China is and how ineffective its position is in the face of a free audience,” the secretary said.
South Korea’s Yonhap News said the memo was written by a military attache at the Chinese embassy in Seoul. An event staffer mistook it for a note from the Philippine delegation and handed it directly to Teodoro while he was on stage, the report said.
This is not the first time Teodoro has lambasted his Chinese counterparts at an international forum. At the Shangri-La Dialogue last year, the Philippine defense chief also criticized them for what he called “propaganda spiels disguised as questions.”
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