Chinese military officials in the Seoul Forum submitted a letter against the arbitration in the South China Sea The Philippine defense minister remarked on the spot: "Because you lost."

On September 8, 2026, during the 2026 Seoul Defence Dialogue held in Seoul, South Korea, a paper handed over by Chinese embassy officials in South Korea was accidentally a public confrontation in the South China Sea dispute. Philippine Defense Minister Gilberto Teodoro read the content of the paper while discussing the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the South China Sea issue and rejected Beijing’s stance on rejecting the 2016 South China Sea Arbitration Decision.

South Korea's joint news agency after verifying to the forum organizersThe letter was handed over to the staff at the scene by an official at the Chinese Embassy in South Korea and asked to be handed over to Teodoro. The staff mistakenly believed the letter was from the Philippine delegation, so it was sent directly to the desk during Teodoro's speech.

A paper attempted to reiterate China’s position, but eventually gave the Philippine defense minister a stage to publicly refute Beijing’s South China Sea legal narrative at the International Security Forum.

“Of course, because you lost.” – Theodore responded after reading the statement that China “does not accept or recognize” the arbitration ruling in the South China Sea.

Chinese military officers deliver paper articles staff misrepresented as filipino information to the office

The 2026 Seoul Defence Dialogue will be held in Seoul from September 7 to 9.The organizer website showsTeodoro was one of the official guests at the meeting.In the discussion on September 8, he spoke about the maritime security challenges facing the Philippines and emphasized the importance of compliance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

During the speech, a staff member handed him a note from the audience.

Theodoro stopped the original speech, stating that he believed the paper was "from China", and then began public reading.The paper reiterated Beijing's long-held arbitration stance in the South China Sea, including arbitration in violation of the principles of international law, the judgment is not binding and China's "not accepting, not recognizing" judgment.

The original report by the Associated Press did not confirm the identity of the sender, but in a subsequent updated report, the forum host said: The letter was delivered by an officer of the Chinese Embassy in Korea. The officer first handed the letter to the forum staff, asking the staff to hand it over to Teodoro; the staff mistakenly believed it was the information of the Philippine delegation, so it was delivered directly to the desk.

This detail changed the nature of the event.It was no longer just “a piece of paper delivered by the audience,” but Chinese diplomatic officials in South Korea attempted to communicate the official political stance to the Philippine defense minister in the venue.

Theodore replied, “So you mean UNCLOS violates international law?”

Teodoro did not pick up the paperwork, nor did he wait for a response after the meeting, but instead chose to read it on the stage.

When the article claims that arbitration in the South China Sea violates the fundamental principles of international law, Theodore responded, meaning: “So you mean that the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea is in violation of international law?

When he wrote that the arbitral ruling was “not binding,” he replied that it was because Beijing was reluctant to accept the constraints under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

He then read the statement of China’s “no-acceptance, no-recognition” ruling and directly replied:

“Of course, because you lost.”

Korean Union andKorean KBS on the scene.Theodoro then raised the paper to the audience, criticizing the practice as a reflection of Beijing's "desperate" and "ineffective" stance, and accusing China of a lack of respect for international law on the South China Sea issue.

He said the problem now is “not a grey zone anymore”, but the actual existence of “coercion, bullying and aggression”.The Korean Associated Press that his criticism of “basically decent” was applauded on the scene.

Theodoro finally expressed an ironic “thank you” to the sender, saying the man had “just done a great good thing for his country” and said he hoped the other party would not suffer “in Gulag.”

The content of the paper is not a new position, but the official calibre of Beijing’s long-standing rejection of arbitration.

What needs to be distinguished is that Teodoro’s criticism is not an unconfirmed web text.The core phrases in the paper are highly consistent with China’s Foreign Ministry’s long-standing open position.

China's Foreign Ministry issued a statement on the day of the 2016 arbitration decision in the South China SeaHe said the ruling was “invalid” and “not binding” and said China “does not accept or recognize it.”July 2026On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the arbitration ruling, the Chinese Foreign Ministry reiterated that the ruling was “illegal, invalid and non-binding” and reiterated that it was “not accepted, not recognized”.

In other words, the dispute at this meeting in Seoul is not whether the paper represents Beijing’s position, but that China has chosen to communicate this position to the Philippine defense minister speaking in an international forum in the manner provided by the embassy officials.

Meanwhile, in 2016, the Court of Arbitration, composed in accordance with Annex 7 to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, ruled on some of the Philippines’ maritime rights and “Nine Paragraphs” claims.The Philippines and several countries have long claimed that the ruling is final and legally binding; Beijing has always refused to accept and recognize the ruling.

Why a paper paper quickly becomes a public opinion event

The confrontation spread rapidly on social media, not only because of the sharpness of the Teodoro language, but also because of the apparent dissemination contradiction throughout the process:

• China did not discuss with the Philippine Defense Minister through a public speech in Taiwan, but submitted a written position through the staff of the Embassy in South Korea;
• the paper was accidentally sent directly to Teodoro himself, giving him the opportunity to receive an immediate public response;
• Teodoro chose to read it in a line, rather than simply summarize the content, so that Beijing's existing position in the South China Sea was directly exposed to the questioning on the spot;
• the applause on the spot and the video subsequently widely disseminated, transformed a diplomatic position into a public communication event.

Live video released by X account "LuJun Quan" on the same daySubsequently spread in Chinese social media. related posts used strong critical language to describe Chinese practices. After the "Focus China" verification, the post believes that the description of the core of the event

• Chinese personnel delivered a piece of paper, Teodoro rejected and received on-site applause
• there is official information support for the Korean Union Agency, KBS and Seoul defense dialogue; but "Darkland" "hanging" and so on belongs to social media commentary phrase, should not be directly adopted as news facts.

From diplomatic operations to the spread of counterfeiting

What really is worth observing is the huge gap between Beijing’s diplomatic operations and the effects of international dissemination.

If the purpose of the Chinese embassy officer in South Korea was to express China’s position in a timely manner when the Philippine defence minister spoke publicly about the South China Sea issue, then from the procedural point of view, the paper did complete the “translation”. but from the outcome of the dissemination, it simultaneously created a public scene out of China’s control: Theodore could choose every sentence in the paper and immediately refute according to the Philippine position.

Originally, it was a one-way move to convey the position, and the result became the scene of the other party's grasp of the vocabulary and dismantling the Beijing narrative.

This also shows that in open international forums, the closed speech transmission methods used by diplomatic agencies in the past, once in the live broadcast, short video and social media environment, can quickly produce the exact opposite effect.

Focus on China believes that the incident has a deeper signal: Beijing still repeats the legal and political calibration that had been fixed a decade ago on the South China Sea issue, but the Philippines is increasingly proactively turning the conflict into an open, visualized international public opinion event.

In recent years, in the face of China’s maritime police, maritime militias and related maritime operations, the Philippines has increasingly placed an emphasis on public images, timely disclosure and international dissemination.The immediate response at the Seoul Forum has a similar effect to this “transparency” strategy – not only in response to diplomatic papers, but also in making disputes directly into the international public eye.

A mistake to avoid *

The confrontation can be confirmed as being applauded on the spot, but this does not mean that all participants officially support the entire position of the Philippines in the South China Sea, nor can it be inferred that the Seoul defence dialogue forms a common policy against China.

Similarly, the current public evidence confirms that a military officer from the Chinese Embassy in South Korea handed the paper over to the staff. There is no evidence that it was a secret operation or a higher level special authorization.Therefore, referring to the incident as a “secret operation” would go beyond current evidence.

Facts that can be confirmed are already sufficiently newsworthy:

The officials of the Chinese Embassy in South Korea indeed submitted a written position in the South China Sea; the forum staff misjudged the source and handed the paper directly to the Philippine Defence Minister; Theodoro publicly rejected and publicly criticized China's actions in the South China Sea; the relevant remarks were applauded on the spot; and the core content of the Chinese paper was consistent with the long-term official caliber of the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

A piece of paper intended to “declarate a position” eventually became a tool for the Philippine defense minister to openly challenge the narrative of the South China Sea in Beijing. For China’s foreign diplomatic system, this is not a change in the policy position itself, but a very typical spread out of control: information is sent, but the agenda and interpretation falls into the hands of the opponent.