China Embassy Note Interrupts Philippine Defense Chief Mid-Speech at Seoul Defense Dialogue; Teodoro Reads It Aloud, Calls It 'Coercion, Bullying'

During a panel on Chinese 'gray zone' coercion in the South China Sea at the Seoul Defense Dialogue on September 8, 2026, a forum staffer placed a handwritten note on the table of Philippine Secretary of National Defense Gilberto Teodoro Jr. while he was speaking. The note, written on hotel stationery by a military attache from the Chinese embassy in Seoul, restated Beijing's position that the 2016 South China Sea arbitral award was 'illegal, null and void' and had no binding force, and that China would keep 'safeguarding its sovereignty' through 'dialogue and consultation.' Teodoro read the note aloud line by line, rebutting each point on the spot — 'So what you signed, UNCLOS, you mean, violates international law,' and 'Of course, because you lost' — before telling the forum, 'This is not gray zone anymore, this is actual coercion, bullying and aggression,' and adding in Filipino, 'Maging disente lang kayo ng konti, mahiya naman kayo ng konti' ('Let's be a little more decent, let's have some shame'). He said he would keep the paper 'as a memento of how desperate China is.' Teodoro, who China sanctioned and barred from the mainland, Hong Kong and Macau in June 2026, said the note's delivery was disrespectful to South Korea as host and to international law. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning responded on September 9, urging 'certain individuals in the Philippines to stop clout-chasing, stop making trouble and stirring up strife, and stop damaging China-Philippines relations and regional stability in the South China Sea,' and accused Manila of 'grandstanding and lying.' She separately called the Philippines' 2016 arbitration case 'a distortion and abuse' of UNCLOS's dispute-settlement mechanism.