Philippine Defense Secretary Gibo Teodoro: China Is Attempting To Force Countries To Accept Its Claims To Sovereignty In The Entire South China Sea

Philippine Defense Secretary Gibo Teodoro said in an interview that was published on the ANC 24/7 YouTube channel on December 15, 2023 that China is trying to cause other countries to accept its own version of international maritime law and to accept its claims that the South China Sea is entirely Chinese territory. He said that China is attempting to convert the South China Sea into a Chinese "lake," and that its use of large military-esque coast guard vessels to enforce its domestic laws in the South China Sea is part of the "legal narrative" that China is attempting to force other countries to accept.

Gibo Teodoro: "China is trying to change unilaterally unclose an international law by allowing other countries to submit. By the unilateral claim of the whole of the South China Sea, as its internal waters. Meaning to say, its converting the South China Sea into a Lake of China. No? And, that is why it is using Coast Guard vessels, which are huge and massive and equivalent to Navel vessels too, to enforce domestic and criminal Chinese law in the whole of the South China Sea. This is part of their illegal narratives, and this is part of their move to unilaterally pound into submission into other countries, to aqueous into their definition of what international law, with respect to the law of the Sea is..."