@sbsnews_au: Watch the moment Philippine defence secretary Gilberto Teodoro received a handwritten note during a public forum in Seoul on Tuesday. Teodoro said it was passed to him by someone associated with the Chinese government, denouncing it on stage as an act of “coercion, bullying and aggression”. Teodoro was speaking at the Seoul Defense Dialogue, an annual multilateral security forum, when a man approached him during a question-and-answer session and handed him a piece of paper. The wording, read aloud by Teodoro, closely mirrors language China’s foreign ministry has used repeatedly in official statements on the South China Sea, including a July statement marking 10 years since an international tribunal ruled against Beijing’s claims, which described Chinese actions in the waterway as “reasonable, legitimate, professional and restrained”. Reuters could not independently verify who handed Teodoro the note or confirm that it originated from an associate of China. The Philippines and China have clashed repeatedly over the South China Sea, where Beijing claims sovereignty over nearly the entire waterway despite a 2016 ruling by an international arbitration tribunal that found its claims had no legal basis. China does not recognise the ruling. For more news, visit @sbsnews_au (link in bio)

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Wednesday 09 September 2026 03:50:32 GMT