Teodoro slams PLA’s 'questions'

Philippine Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro engaged in a testy back-and-forth with Chinese officials at a Singapore security forum yesterday, accusing leaders in Beijing of grabbing territory in disputed waters and repressing their own people.

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During a panel at the Shangri-La Dialogue, two senior colonels in the People's Liberation Army directed questions at Mr Teodoro, asking whether the Philippines would serve as a US proxy in Asia or adopt a friendlier approach towards China.

Mr Teodoro thanked the pair for “propaganda spiels disguised as questions”, a line that received rare applause from those in attendance. He went on to lambast China's territorial claims in the South China Sea, saying a lack of trust in Beijing was “the biggest stumbling block” to resolving the dispute.

“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,” he said. He added that he couldn't trust a country that “represses its own people”.