U.S Indo-Pacific Command- Admiral Samuel Paparo spoke at the 37th meeting of the annual international Military Law and Operations strategic engagement (MILOPS), held in Kuala Lumpur, which brings together over 200 national security personnel from over 30 nations in the Indo-Pacific. Paparo’s rant included:
“The Rule of Law is critical to advance freedom, security and prosperity. China is regularly employing lawfare as a pretext for coercion, using its dedicated three-warfares strategy to isolate, intimidate, and delegitimize countries and their territorial integrity. China declares laws unilaterally and then applies them retroactively; China pressures nations to concede sovereign rights they lawfully possess and use false claims of legitimacy to justify coercion. That is not ‘Rule of Law’, that is ‘Rule by Law’.”
The focus is on the South China Sea and Taiwan. Philippines Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. was a featured war-hawk at the conference, ranting about “China’s increasingly assertive and aggressive actions against the Philippines,” as reported in Manila’s Daily Tribune. Teodoro bragged that the Philippines instigated the tribunal in the Hague, which ruled, without China’s presence or participation, that China’s claim to portions of the South China Sea were not legitimate. Back home, Teodoro is leading a campaign for a law to force politicians who support China, or China’s positions, to resign.
China’s Global Times reported China’s response, noting that the Philippines’ current hardline stance is “undoubtedly closely linked to the US’ continuous reinforcement of its so-called alliance commitments and security support. Without Washington’s backing and encouragement behind the scenes, Manila would not have had the confidence, capability or ambition to take such actions on the South China Sea issue.”
As to Adm. Paparo’s claim that China uses “false claims of legitimacy” to justify “intimidation and coercion,” while portraying the US as a defender of the “rule of law,” the Global Times quotes Chinese official Li Qingsi from the National Academy of Development and Strategy of Renmin University, that “Washington itself seeks to dominate the region.”
Global Times also reports that Teodoro, speaking at the MILOPS, said “ASEAN cannot indefinitely remain a ‘zone of neutrality’ amid what he described as China’s efforts to divide the region,” although he also tried to claim unanimity among ASEAN nations on these questions. In fact, he and the Marcos government in Manila are openly breaking from the ASEAN policy of neutrality in international and regional affairs, as well as in its internal affairs, with the full support of the U.S. war faction.
It was also noted that the US-Philippine annual joint military exercises will be launched in the Philippines on April 20, 2027, in which approximately 10,000 US military personnel are scheduled to take part, with the Japan Self-Defense Forces also set to participate, and which takes place amid tense China-Philippines and China-Japan relations. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told Global Times that “unilateralism and military bullying have inflicted profound disasters on the world.”
