Dramatic scenes unfolded at Seoul Defence Dialogue on Tuesday when what is widely known as Chinese “wolf warrior diplomacy”—a confrontational and aggressive posture adopted by Beijing’s officials and state-run media—ran into stiff Philippine resistance.
In 2005, Pranab Mukherjee, then defence minister who would go on to become the Indian president, cited the differences between India and China on the border front at a Mumbai event. When the note claimed that arbitration in 2016 violated fundamental international law, he said, “So what you’re saying is UNCLOS violates international law, according to Yonhap.
When Teodoro was mid-speech discussing the Philippines’s maritime challenges, an event staffer passed him a note from the audience, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency. Chinese consul general Song De Heng, who was present there, objected to being called an “invader,” sparking a spat. The ruling was final and legally binding under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the treaty that governs maritime boundaries, territorial waters and exclusive economic zones, the news agency said. However, China has rejected the decision as “null and void”. To the part that Beijing “neither accepts nor recognises” the ruling, Teodoro said: “Of course, because you lost. Yonhap said he then held up the slip of paper to the room, describing the gesture as a “desperate and ineffective” stance by China, which he accused of a complete lack of “basic decency” and utter disrespect for international law. This is actual coercion, bullying and aggression,” he said, drawing applause from the crowd.
It all began when Philippine defence secretary Gilberto Teodoro was speaking on stage at South Korea’s flagship multilateral security forum hosted by its defence ministry. In his sharp, on-the-spot rebuttal, the Chinese official questioned Mukherjee’s remarks that China had settled its border disputes with every neighbour except India and Bhutan, and asked whether the sticking point was China’s inflexibility or India’s. At the defence conclave, Teodoro retorted to each point mentioned in the note allegedly sent by the Chinese defence attaché. That’s what you mean. “This is not a gray zone anymore.
