Why a superpower resorts to racist slurs
For years, Beijing has tried to gaslight the world into believing the South China Sea belongs to them by some divine, historical right.
SCREENGRAB CHINADAILY
Daily TribuneFor years, Beijing has tried to gaslight the world into believing the South China Sea belongs to them by some divine, historical right.
SCREENGRAB CHINADAILY
Let’s call this exactly what it is: a temper tantrum on a geopolitical scale.
When China Daily, a literal mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, released an AI-animated video depicting Filipinos as a “ragged monkey” in a salakot — controlled by Uncle Sam and Japan and getting blasted by water cannons — they weren’t just trying to offend us.
They were showing us their cards. They revealed the deep, shaking insecurity of an empire that has realized its billions of dollars, artificial islands and massive warships cannot buy them the one thing they desperately crave: Legal legitimacy.
There is a word for this in our culture: “pikon.” When a bully loses an argument they swore they would win and realizes they have absolutely no logical leg to stand on, they stop arguing. They resort to name-calling.
For years, Beijing has tried to gaslight the world into believing the South China Sea belongs to them by some divine, historical right. But in 2016, the Philippines did something quiet, civilized and devastatingly effective. We didn’t send warships; we sent lawyers. We went to the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, armed with maps, treaties, and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
And we won.
The 2016 Arbitral Award didn’t just validate our sovereignty over the West Philippine Sea; it proved to the entire global community that the rule of law is stronger than the law of the jungle. It established that on the international stage, a small island nation with a pen can dismantle the baseless claims of a global giant.
That piece of paper is China’s kryptonite. They are in absolute, frantic denial of the ruling because admitting it exists means admitting that they are bound by the same rules as everyone else. Their entire foreign policy relies on the idea that “might makes right.” The Arbitral Award proves that, actually, right makes might.
So, how do they react? By pulling out the oldest, ugliest colonial playbook in existence.
Depicting brown-skinned Asians as monkeys is a racist trope as old as Western imperialism itself. It is the ultimate hypocrisy that a government which constantly whines about its own historical “century of humiliation” by foreign powers is now using the exact same dehumanizing, colonial insults against its neighbors.
They want us to look at ourselves and feel small. They want us to believe we are just puppets, incapable of independent thought or agency, simply because we refuse to bow down to their intimidation.
But they underestimate us.
We are not the caricatures in their state-funded cartoons. We are the nation that stood up to empires, survived colonization and pioneered the legal blueprint for maritime democracy. Every time they blast our fishermen with water cannons or mock our identity online, they aren’t showing strength — they are showing the world how morally bankrupt they truly are.
This is our moment to unite. Let’s stop arguing among ourselves and realize what is at stake.
Our law is our shield, our dignity is non-negotiable and no racist video can ever erase the truth: The West Philippine Sea is ours.