Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. asserted that China has no right to dictate how the Philippines interprets the One China policy, stressing that Beijing is using Manila’s policy to reinforce its claims over Taiwan.
“That is the propaganda of China. That is what they’re using, so we don’t have to stand up together with our allies against what they’re doing in the West Philippine Sea and how they are encroaching through the nine-dash line. It’s a form of gaslighting against us,” he said mostly in Filipino.
“We have committed to the One China Policy. We don’t recognize the Republic of China as the Republic of China, although that is how we recognized it before. Now, Beijing should not dictate to us what the One China Policy is when something is happening within our territory. Do we tell them what to do with their country? We do not,” Teodoro added.
Earlier, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) reaffirmed the Philippines’ commitment to upholding the One China Policy during a Senate hearing.
DFA Secretary Tess Lazaro said the country stands by the 1975 Joint Communique between China and the Philippines, which recognized the sole and legal government of Beijing as the People’s Republic of China.
There were also previous tensions following Beijing’s protest against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s statement, stating “that there is no way that the Philippines can stay out” if a war breaks out in the Taiwan Strait.
The Philippines currently holds no diplomatic ties with Taiwan, which separated from mainland China in 1949 after the Chinese Civil War.
