Gilberto Teodoro, the Defense Secretary of the Philippines, got into a tense back-and-forth with Chinese officials at the Shangri-La Dialogue on Sunday. During a plenary session, two People’s Liberation Army officers asked him if Manila would adopt a friendlier attitude to China or serve as a U.S. proxy in Asia.
Teodoro thanked them for “propaganda spiels disguised as questions,” and went on to blast China, saying “the biggest stumbling block” to resolving the territorial issues in the South China Sea is a lack of trust in Beijing. Teodoro also said he can’t trust a country that “represses its own people.”
