Why Beijing wants us to go quiet

Last Tuesday, Secretary Tess Lazaro and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi spoke by phone. Our DFA called the conversation frank, pragmatic and constructive. Both sides agreed to keep talking, manage differences and avoid actions and rhetoric that could raise tensions before the Asean summit.

That sounds good. Nobody in the Philippine government is against keeping an open line of communication with China.

But I read the other side’s version, too, and I suggest every Filipino do the same.

In Xinhua’s account, Wang told Lazaro that relations are suffering from malicious interference by a small number of Filipino politicians who keep attacking China and crossing its red lines. He asked Manila to tighten its oversight of the individuals concerned and speak with one rational, unified voice on China.

He did not name anyone. He did not need to.

So let us not pretend this was only about lowering the temperature. Beijing just asked our government to muzzle its own people, specifically those who show the public what happens in the West Philippine Sea.

And now there are voices here saying perhaps we should oblige, perhaps transparency has done its job, perhaps it is time to be quiet for the sake of good relations.

Before we go down that road, we should ask a simple question: Why does China want us quiet, and who benefits if we are?

I have been part of this since the beginning, so let me explain what transparency actually did.

Before 2023, what happened at sea stayed at sea. The China Coast Guard would block us, ram us and hit us with water cannons, and the public would find out, if at all, through a diplomatic note filed weeks later. Beijing’s denial would come out the same afternoon.

Their story traveled. Ours did not.

We began releasing videos, photographs, the exact time and location of each incident, and the legal basis for Philippine presence and jurisdiction, usually within hours.

The water cannon attacks at Bajo de Masinloc. The military-grade laser pointed at our crew. The ramming of resupply boats at Ayungin. The swarming of vessels in our exclusive economic zone.

All of it is now on the record, documented not only by Filipinos who were there with us but also by independent foreign journalists who witnessed these incidents firsthand.

Yes, we deliberately leveraged one of our most cherished democratic values — freedom of the press — to help us tell the world the truth.

China can still deny what happened, but it must now contend with photographic and video evidence. In the past, Beijing could more easily control the narrative, using malign influence operations to shape domestic and international public opinion.

Our transparency initiative has fundamentally changed that dynamic, severely constraining China’s ability to manipulate information and distort the facts.

Anyone working in defense or foreign policy who fails to understand these dynamics and their implications for long-term Philippine interests is neglecting a fundamental responsibility.

Here is the first thing China gains if we go quiet: The world goes quiet with us.

When Washington, Tokyo, Canberra, Ottawa, Brussels or the G7 condemn the actions of the China Coast Guard in our waters, they are not reacting to our news conferences. They are reacting to the footage we release.

A foreign minister can issue a statement of concern based on compelling video evidence. No government issues such a statement based on rumors, much less on a confidential note verbale or diplomatic démarche delivered weeks after the incident.

The same footage helps sustain the security partnerships we have built.

Every like-minded government has to explain to its own parliament and people why it signs a maritime cooperation agreement with Manila, why its coast guard sails with ours and why it helps support our modernization.

The daily record of Chinese behavior in the West Philippine Sea is their justification.

Take it away, and supporting the Philippines becomes an abstraction. Abstractions do not survive a budget hearing.

Beijing knows this. I am not sure all of our own officials do.

When dealing with an actor that has lied many times and fooled us on numerous occasions, silence does not buy us greater diplomatic space.

It simply takes us back to how things were before 2023, when China kept pushing the envelope and we filed diplomatic protests whose full contents nobody ever saw.

The second thing is longer-term and more cynical.

China has learned from our last two elections that being seen as close to Beijing is now a liability in Philippine politics. Candidates who once proudly boasted of their friendship with China now prefer to change the subject.

Transparency is a major reason why.

It is difficult to campaign on the claim that China is our friend when voters can see, on their own phones, Chinese Coast Guard vessels firing water cannons at Philippine Coast Guard ships, threatening Filipino fishermen and depriving them of their livelihoods.

Beijing’s answer to that problem is not to change how it behaves at sea. It is to make sure nobody sees it anymore.

If transparency ends in 2027, the West Philippine Sea is out of the news by 2028. People forget.

The field is then wide open for politicians who owe Beijing, backed by Beijing’s money, to take back Malacañang and put the next president on a leash for six years.

Not this year’s ASEAN summit. Not this month’s APEC.

It is about who sits in the Palace after 2028 and whether that person answers to the Filipino people or to someone else.

One last detail from this week, because it tells you everything about who we are dealing with.

Our DFA says Secretary Lazaro received the call from Wang. Xinhua says Wang took the call at Lazaro’s request.

China’s malign influence operators got to work and reinforced this messaging to make the Philippines appear desperate.

The Chinese term they used, 应约, is the formula Beijing uses when the other side asked for the conversation.

In other words, the two governments cannot agree on who picked up the phone first.

In December 2023, Beijing said then-Secretary Manalo had requested his call with Wang. Diplomatic sources in Manila insisted it was the Chinese side that called.

Twice now, on the most trivial of things in diplomacy, China has told the world a different story from the one it told us.

Both times, the story made the Philippines look like the one coming to Beijing, hat in hand, to patch things up.

And this latest one came barely two weeks after their ambassador reminded us that China could easily win if it chose to use force.

And now Beijing is asking us to trust its good faith and stop documenting what its ships do in our own waters.

If China is willing to rewrite the record of a phone call, what would stop it from doing the same with a water cannon attack, a ramming incident or the next confrontation at Bajo de Masinloc or Ayungin?

Without footage from our side, Beijing would be free to push its version of events, with little evidence available to challenge it.

That is precisely why transparency must continue.

Diplomacy with China remains necessary, but it must never come at the expense of documenting what happens in our waters.

Footage provides evidence that Beijing cannot simply dismiss or explain away.

A country that cannot be honest about who dialed cannot be trusted to be honest about anything that matters more.

(Rear Admiral Jay Tristan Tarriela, Ph.D., commands the West Philippine Sea Transparency Group and serves as the Philippine Coast Guard’s spokesperson on West Philippine Sea matters. He holds a doctoral degree from the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) in Tokyo and a master’s degree jointly awarded by GRIPS and the Japan Coast Guard Academy.)

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