FIRING LINE: A diplomat who acts like a bully

FIRING LINE: A diplomat who acts like a bully

By Robert B. Roque Jr. October 20, 2026

Ambassador Jing Quan says China loves peace. Fine. But in the same breath, he said that if China wanted to use force, it “may easily win.” In the middle of a live South China Sea dispute, that is not a slip a seasoned diplomat gets to shrug off. There is no room for misinterpretation or veiled threats.

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) was frank enough to call it exactly that, and President Marcos said it sounded “like a threat” and “not very diplomatic.”

Here is what a real diplomat does next. He clarifies. He retracts. He issues a statement that pushes his supposed core message: peaceful talks and settlement. Jing did none of that.

Instead, after local officials reacted, the Chinese embassy went combative. It posted a collage of senators and congressmen, branded them a “chorus of anti-China politicians,” then accused journalists and politicians of “twisting facts.” Yet the embassy named no one and cited no report. That is double-speak: preaching peace while picking fights.

Worse, it is insulting. Jing is testing the limits of his immunity instead of calming things down or clearly explaining his country’s position. And daring Congress to “just do it” and declare him persona non grata, or “STOP BLUFFING,” sounds like yet another veiled threat, with repercussions implied.

All this comes from an ambassador who is no stranger to the consequences. Kalayaan’s municipal council in Palawan declared him persona non grata in January, after the embassy criticized Philippine officials, and did the same to his predecessor over the 2023 water cannon attack.

Even Ray Powell of Stanford’s SeaLight suggests Jing’s remark was an unscripted overstep, an implied threat that deserved a formal response. Granted. But an unscripted moment can be corrected. It was doubled down on. Maritime law expert Jay Batongbacal is right: this “wolf-warrior diplomacy” is not working and is further destroying relations, while undermining Jing’s own appeal for dialogue.

Let us be clear: Filipinos’ discontent is not bias against the person of Jing. It is his actuations, his abrasive tone, his insensitive statements. If he was answering Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro, threatening an entire nation was not the measured, decent response.

At the very least, Jing has failed at the job of upholding friendly ties. And if he stays and keeps being the thorn that he is, then he is not a diplomat but a weapon used by China in our very own homeland.

Jing has a lot to prove if he is to stay in the Philippines. And if Beijing wants him to stay, he must show that he is a true diplomat, and not a bully.

*         *         *

SHORT BURSTS. For comments or reactions, email firingline@ymail.com or tweet @Side_View via X app (formerly Twitter). Read current and past issues of this column at https://www.thenationweek.com