Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro accused China of coercion and bullying after receiving a note during a public panel at the Seoul Defense Dialogue. The incident brought the long-running South China Sea dispute into the proceedings of an international security forum hosted by South Korea.
Video from Tuesday's event showed an apparent staff member handing Teodoro a paper while he was speaking onstage in Seoul. He identified it as seemingly Chinese and read a statement asserting that Beijing's position on the South China Sea arbitration was consistent and that the proceedings violated fundamental principles of international law.
The reference concerned a 2016 ruling by an international tribunal in The Hague that largely supported the Philippines in its case against China's expansive maritime claims. Beijing rejects that decision, while several regional states maintain overlapping claims and their vessels regularly confront one another in the heavily patrolled waterway.
Teodoro said that, if the paper represented an official Chinese position, delivering it in that manner disrespected international law, the South Korean host and the audience. He described the episode as actual coercion, bullying and aggression and said he would retain the document as a reminder of Beijing's approach.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency said a military attaché at the Chinese embassy in Seoul asked an event employee to pass the note to Teodoro. AFP could not independently confirm that account, and South Korea's Defense Ministry did not respond to questions about how the message entered the panel.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said she was unaware of the specific circumstances when asked about the incident. She nevertheless urged Philippine figures to stop what Beijing described as grandstanding and troublemaking and to avoid undermining bilateral relations and stability in the South China Sea.
The confrontation therefore combines two disputes: the substantive disagreement over the legal effect of the 2016 award and a procedural argument about conduct inside a diplomatic forum. The note's precise origin remains unconfirmed, but the public exchange illustrates how maritime tensions now shape even multilateral discussions away from the contested waters.
