Vocal West Philippine Sea (WPS) transparency champion, Coast Guard spokesperson Jay Tarriela, last week got the goat of local Chinese Embassy officials, enough for them to demand that he be sanctioned.
Tarriela, however, isn’t the first Filipino official to be personally called out by the Chinese embassy on the volatile WPS issue.
In fact, Tarriela joins the lengthening list of Filipino officials — which presently includes Senator Kiko Pangilinan, Representative Leila de Lima, Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad, and members of the National Maritime Council — who have had exchanges with Chinese embassy officials.
Nonetheless, Tarriela is the first official slapped with a diplomatic protest for his “malicious provocations” and for his “serious violation of China’s political dignity and blatant political provocation which has crossed the red line.”
The embassy’s strongly-worded attack came after caricatures of Chinese leader Xi Jinping were displayed in a forum where Tarriela was a guest.
Embassy spokesperson Gray Wei, in a social media post, asked if Tarriela’s “smears and slanders against the Chinese leader represented the stance of the Philippine government.”
Quickly reacting, Tarriela brushed off China’s protestation, insisting that “there’s no authority for the Chinese Embassy to ask us to explain. I don’t think there’s a need for me to apologize to the Chinese Embassy.”
Malacañang and the Department of Foreign Affairs, meanwhile, were mum on the Tarriela-embassy spat.
But peeved Representative Chel Diokno last weekend concluded that the Chinese diplomats acted disrespectfully and he called on the DFA “to put an immediate stop to this impunity.”
Diokno pointed out the attacks on Tarriela and the other Filipino officials violated Article 41 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations” which explicitly requires diplomats “to respect the laws and regulations of a host country and, more importantly, to refrain from interfering in a host country’s internal affairs.”
In any case, diplomatic observers noted the Chinese Embassy’s marked display of a confrontational style signaled a new, more complicated stage for how Chinese diplomats will now conduct diplomacy hereabouts.
But while Filipino officials didn’t categorically describe it as abrasive, the Chinese embassy’s unrestrained style is fairly familiar in diplomatic circles.
Diplomatic observers said the style is known as “wolf warrior diplomacy,” a form of diplomacy which China had switched on and off in the past few years.
The observers, however, said only a small number of Chinese diplomats actively hew to this form of unconventional diplomacy, and they are often referred to as “wolf warriors,” a moniker the Asia Times says “most Chinese officials strongly dislike.”
Whether or not Chinese embassy officials, including newly arrived Ambassador Jing Quan, have embraced “wolf warrior diplomacy” --- and how long it will be before they revert back to their cautious, low-key diplomatic style — remains to be seen.
For what it’s worth, they turned on their aggressive style amid China’s ongoing no-holds-barred tiff with Philippine ally Japan.
China’s spat with Japan, which has since careened into economic sanctions, came shortly after Japan’s popular Premier Sanae Takichi made remarks about Taiwan, one of China’s “core interests.”
Shortly after her comments, a Chinese diplomat in Japan wrote that “the dirty neck that sticks itself in must be cut off,” a stinging rebuke that Japan perceived to be a threat against the Prime Minister.
Political and diplomatic observers said China’s vocal displeasure with Takichi showed that “the period of restraint appears to be fading…(and) reflects the defining traits of wolf warrior diplomacy, especially the use of public intimidation,” reported the Asia Times.