cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/51515199
The Chinese embassy’s new-found rigor in launching tirades against Philippine institutions seems to have found a new target: a long-running independent news organization, after it released a video version of a months-old report on Chinese propaganda and China’s influence operations in the country.
In a statement on February 26, the embassy’s deputy spokesperson Guo Wei first assailed the embassy’s usual target: Commodore Jay Tarriela, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG)’s spokesperson for the West Philippine Sea for “[echoing] the so-called exposing ‘pro-China propaganda’ (sic).”
Tarriela had shared a video report by journalist Regine Cabato for the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) where she outlined “5 Red Flags to Watch Out For” to determine if a social media post is pro-China propaganda.
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Guo didn’t address any points Cabato raised in the video, which includes critiques of influence operations of other countries like the United States. Instead, the embassy mouthpiece said it was “worth noting” that the PCIJ had received funding from the US-funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
Curiously, neither Guo nor the embassy seemed to have reacted in October 2025 when a text article and investigative report also by Cabato — from which the video is based on — was first released.
Funding from NED is not covert. Since it’s sourced from US federal funds, grants are public and made available on its official website. Grants that the PCIJ received are also not new — the screenshots posted by the Chinese embassy indicate funding from 2015 until 2021.
So why bring up NED at all?
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NED, as well as NED-funded projects and organizations, is a sore point for Beijing.
A page on the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ (MFA) official website is dedicated to a discussion of NED, where it claims that it’s the US government’s “white gloves,” which Beijing characterizes as engagements “in subverting state power in other countries, meddling in other countries’ internal affairs, inciting division and confrontation, misleadingpublic opinion, and conducting ideological infiltration, all under the pretext of promoting democracy.”
Under the Philippines, the same 2024-published MFA FAQ page mentions NED’s grants to Rappler and what it terms as a “lobby” to the Commission on Elections (Comelec) “for access to internal information including election trends and campaign spending.” Campaign spending in the Philippines is public information, released once elections are over. Election trends, if the MFA meant polling, is not conducted by the Comelec but by independent polling firms either for public release or for internal use by private groups such as political parties.
The underlying dynamics here, of course, is the competition between the only superpowers in the world – the United States and China. It’s a competition that’s felt not only in military supremacy and economic dominance, but in either countries’ attempts to exercise influence across the world.
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In addressing the PCIJ report, the embassy focused on attacking Tarriela and the PCIJ’s funding, implying that since the organization gets funding from NED, its integrity is compromised.
“People can’t help asking: whose interests do they serve?” said Guo. Who those “people” are, the embassy did not say.
In another February 26 statement, Guo went further in attacking PCIJ, after the independent news organization issued a statement expressing “regret” and “alarm” over the Chinese embassy’s allegations against both the organization and Cabato.
“We have zealously guarded our independence since our founding in 1989. We are nobody’s tool. And yet, we have watched as pro-Duterte partisans amplified the Chinese Embassy’s allegations, posted at 11:34 PM Manila time on Facebook and X. The virality of the Embassy’s message within a few hours attest to the coordinated nature of this online attack,” said the PCIJ, which also noted that it “receives funding from multiple sources, including from UN organizations.”
The PCIJ added: “We are alarmed that the Chinese Embassy is attacking independent reporting by Filipinos. Their actions only lend credence to our story.”
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