China’s growing “deficit of trust” is the biggest obstacle to peacefully resolving disputes in the South China Sea, Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro said at a major regional security forum on Sunday, calling out Beijing for territorial expansion and domestic repression.
Speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Teodoro said China’s actions had severely eroded trust across the region, undermining efforts to resolve maritime disputes.
“That deficit of trust, which I think any rational person — or any person that is not ideologically biased, with freedom of thought and freedom of speech — will agree with,” Teodoro said, adding that it was impossible to trust a country that “represses its own people.”
“To envision a China-led international order, we only need to look at how they treat their much smaller neighbors in the South China Sea, which runs counter to the ‘peaceful rise’ they initially promised,” he said, noting the broader regional implications of China’s conduct.
Teodoro engaged in a tense exchange with senior officers from China’s People’s Liberation Army who questioned whether the Philippines was merely acting as a proxy for US interests.
Brushing aside their remarks, the Defense Secretary dismissed the questions as “propaganda spiels disguised as questions,” a quip that drew rare applause from the audience.
Tensions between China and the Philippines have spiked under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., with Manila resisting Beijing’s sweeping claims in the South China Sea.
Confrontations have become increasingly frequent, with Manila recently accusing China’s Coast Guard of firing a water cannon at a Philippine fisheries vessel near Bailan Island (also known as Sandy Cay) in the contested Spratly Islands.
China asserts control over more than 80% of the South China Sea, based on a 1947 map featuring vague dashes that overlap with the claims of the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, and Malaysia.
In 2016, an international tribunal ruled that China’s expansive claims have no legal basis — a ruling Beijing has refused to accept.
The Philippines has responded by strengthening defense ties with allies, expanding US military access to bases near Taiwan and signing defense agreements with Japan and New Zealand, while also pursuing similar pacts with Canada and France.
Meanwhile, China has continued to construct artificial islands equipped with military facilities to reinforce its claims. Teodoro warned that Manila has “a variety of options” should Beijing move to seize any reef close to Philippine shores.
