The ‘Red Guards’ of propaganda are young and real

They found a formidable opponent: Gilberto Teodoro

The faces of two young Chinese talking heads have become familiar to me. In Tiktok and Facebook videos produced by state-owned China Daily, they often denounce the Philippines’ sovereign rights over the West Philippine Sea as “illegal.” That’s just one of their spiels.

They seem to be a tag team, one male, one female, and they look like millennials or maybe even younger, Gen Z kids. They speak English fluently, with little trace of a Chinese accent. Both come across as smart and confident, their faces clear and bright.

When “Atin Ito!” set sail into the West Philippine Sea for its second humanitarian mission in May last year, these talking heads went on the offensive, peddling false narratives on the civil society coalition. They’re “secretly” funded by the US and Philippine governments, the two said.

How can they mobilize resources and people to launch such a daunting mission? That was the question that puzzled them. Thus they concluded that these activists must have gotten money from America. It’s typical for Chinese propaganda to paint the world using the binary lens of superpower competition: Everyone who stands up to China is a prop or pawn of the US. 

You can watch their video here. 

I wondered if these two talking heads were created by AI or if their scripts were voiced by AI. They lacked the authenticity of native Chinese speakers. 

To my surprise, a friend who attended the recent Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore sent me photos of this team from China Daily saying they were real and they were there as “journalists” covering the important defense and security conference.

And how they sprang into action! Our forensics researcher Gaby Baizas tells us more about them in this story.

Our top security officials, Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro and military chief Romeo Brawner Jr., appeared to be their targets. In one video, the China Daily kids tried to do an ambush interview with Brawner, catching up with him as he was leaving the hall. Breathlessly, they asked him to comment on the Philippines’ “provocations” in the South China Sea. Brawner, with a smile, politely declined. Oh! He “dodged” our questions, one said, full of self-righteousness. 

You can watch how the China Daily “journalists” tried to corner Brawner here. 

Teodoro immediately took to social media to call out the Chinese posing as journalists in this video uploaded by the defense department. He and Brawner wasted no time in debunking China Daily’s false news.

Trolling Philippine officials

Another Chinese tactic is to troll Philippine officials in international conferences. At the Munich Security Conference last February, a Chinese academic  asked a pointed question at Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo about the supposed promise of the Philippine government to tow away BRP Sierra Madre from Ayungin Shoal. This has been a contentious issue between China and the Philippines with China claiming that the Philippines has reneged on its promise.

Days after, at the Chatham House in London, where Manalo spoke, a Chinese diplomat, who initially did not identify himself as such, asked the same question.

Teodoro experienced this kind of trolling at the Shangri-La Dialogue. He was asked by a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) officer why the  Philippines could not manage its maritime dispute with China the way Malaysia and Vietnam do. Apparently, he was referring to the Philippines’ transparency policy of making China’s aggression in the West Philippine Sea public. We’re the only South China Sea claimant country doing this. 

Another PLA officer asked Teodoro about a potential “proxy war” in the region because of the US setting up military bases in the Philippines. This was not accurate, though. He was referring to the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement or EDCA sites, Philippine bases which the American military has access to.

In his reply, a miffed Teodoro described the PLA officers’ questions as “propaganda disguised as questions.” 

“Red Guards” of propaganda

The recent encounter of Teodoro and Brawner with the China Daily tag team showed something new, though: an in-your-face confrontation, with “pretend journalists” (Teodoro’s term) asking questions from Philippine officials in an aggressive manner and putting them in a bad light.

While the Philippines has been a victim of massive disinformation  from China — and continues to be — this new tactic seems to have made its debut at the Shangri-La Dialogue.

Somehow, the zeal of the two young Chinese reminds me of Mao Tse Tung’s” Red Guards”— but in the propaganda and disinformation sphere. They march to the same drumbeat, delivering the message that the South China Sea is their lake. They show their might in the information space the way their Coast Guard, PLA Navy and maritime militia do so in the seas.

They are bringing the propaganda war face-to-face, but it will not be easy for them in the Philippines. Apart from the anti-China sentiment here, because of their aggressive actions in the West Philippine Sea, they have found a formidable opponent in our defense secretary. 

Let me know what you think. You can email me at: marites.vitug@rappler.com.

Till next newsletter!