If you’re a big country that likes to bully nearby smaller countries, and you’d rather they not team up against you, maybe don’t let the crewmen of one of your vessels attack crewmen of one of those smaller countries with knives and machetes. Philippine officials say that Chinese seafarers’ blade-wielding attack on Filipinos in 2024 encouraged them to rethink some things.
“Chinese ships have rammed, swarmed and pounded Philippine vessels in waters off the western coast of the Philippines, including in an intense confrontation in June last year when Chinese personnel wielding knives and machetes boarded Philippine boats. It was after this incident, Philippine officials said, that engagement with Taiwanese leaders picked up across multiple agencies,” reports the Washington Post (“The Philippines is quietly working with Taiwan to counter China,” July 14, 2025).
“Any force projection of China within our area [like an attack on Taiwan] is a matter of extreme concern,” Philippine Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro said in an interview Thursday….
“It would be hiding from the obvious to say that Taiwan’s security will not affect us,” added Teodoro….
The number of Chinese vessels in waters off the western coast of the Philippines has increased markedly in the past year, along with cybersecurity attacks, espionage and other threats emanating from Beijing, according to the Philippine national security council….
The Philippine coast guard recently carried out patrols alongside the Taiwanese coast guard in the Bashi Channel, the waterway between the two jurisdictions, the officials and advisers said.
And last month, observers from Taiwan’s navy and marine corps were present during a joint exercise led by U.S. and Philippine marines, they said.
During the exercise, named Kamandag, U.S., Philippine and Japanese troops practiced launching anti-ship missiles off the Batenes islands, the northernmost tip of the Philippines, less than 130 miles from the southern tip of Taiwan. Though Philippine forces have said the exercises were not aimed at any country, defense analysts said it was clear they were drills to counter Chinese ships in the case of an invasion of Taiwan.
Over the last few years, the current Philippine government has repeatedly—though not always consistently—proven much more realistic than the previous administration about the need to resist China.
If Chinese crewmen hadn’t attacked Filipinos with knives and machetes, maybe some other clash would have inspired the Philippines to review its relationship with the Republic of China. With or without a particularly nasty incident to serve as a wake-up call, though, the PRC’s pattern of conduct has been more than sufficient to justify the Philippines in hardening its defenses in cooperation with other countries of the region, including the ROC.
Playing with fire
If the People’s Republic of China dislikes how its neighbors are teaming up against it, all it has to do is permanently stop threatening everybody in the neighborhood. Then everybody would relax. Instead, it is urging the Philippines to forego the military exercises and self-defense.
“We urge certain people in the Philippines to refrain from making provocations and playing with fire on the Taiwan question,” intones a monotonous Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman. All you countries should just let China roll right over you.
