Soft tofu and hard questions over Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s ties to China
- With the toss of a snack at a Manila police officer, a Chinese student has set off a public and political debate about the relationship between the two countries
A Chinese student who threw a cup of tofu at a railway police officer in Manila has triggered a national debate about the status of Chinese citizens in the Philippines, with the dispute embroiling the elite of Philippine politics.
Zhang Jiale, 23, threw her soft tofu snack called taho at officer William Cristobal at a Metro Rail Transit station on Saturday morning when he asked her to finish it before going through a gate to the platform, the Philippine Department of Transportation said.
The MRT recently banned liquids as part of tighter security measures in response to a bomb threat.
Zhang, a first-year student at the SoFA Design Institute in Makati City, Metro Manila, was charged with disobeying authority, direct assault and “unjust vexation”, The Philippine Star reported.
Philippine National Police chief Director General Oscar Albayalde had ordered National Capital Region Police Office chief Director Guillermo Eleazar to take the necessary steps to deport Zhang, the report said.
“I gave instructions to the NCRPO to coordinate with the Bureau of Immigration for her possible deportation for being an undesirable alien,” Albayalde was quoted as saying.
Zhang, who has been in the Philippines for six years, apologised this week, saying she had been in a bad mood at the time and could not control her emotions.
“I’m really, really sorry. I really ask if it’s possible to have another chance,” she said. “I really like the Philippines. That’s why I want to stay here. I like the people here. I really love Filipinos.”
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But pictures of Cristobal with his uniform drenched in bean curd had been shared more than 75,000 times by Wednesday, and were not winning her sympathy.
The incident triggered angry comments from Filipinos on social media, with some raising concerns over growing numbers of Chinese visitors, investment and even the dispute in the South China Sea.
Responding to the tide of public anger, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teddyboy Locsin urged the public not to get worked up over a “non-issue”.
“She was flinging taho, not encroaching in our national territory,” he wrote on Twitter.
But Vice-President Leni Robredo, an arch-rival of China-friendly President Rodrigo Duterte, was not impressed, calling the incident a “wake-up call” to Filipinos for the “special treatment” given to Chinese.
“It’s not only an insult to the police but to all Filipinos as well,” she said on her weekly programme on radio station DZXL.
The vice-president’s politically charged comments come on the heels of local media reports that illegal foreign workers, including Chinese, are taking away jobs from Filipinos. With the issue escalating from social media to the heart of Philippines politics, presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo hit back at the vice-president on Monday.
“Maybe it’s a wake-up call to her to stop speculating and stop giving statements that may inflame incidents that need not be so,” Panelo said, while also warning foreign nationals to behave in the country.
Many Chinese social media users expressed embarrassment over Zhang’s behaviour.
“I beg the Philippines not to deport her. We don’t want people like this,” one user wrote on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like microblogging service.
“Please don’t study abroad if you lack moral education,” another wrote.
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China and the Philippines have developed close financial and political ties since Duterte was elected president in 2016, reversing years of tension between the two countries after the administration of his predecessor, Benigno Aquino, filed a case in 2013 with a United Nations-backed tribunal against Beijing’s claims in the South China Sea. The tribunal handed down a ruling in Manila’s favour a few days after Duterte became president.
In the year he came to power, Duterte secured US$24 billion in investment, credit and loan pledges from China to upgrade his country’s infrastructure. Nearly half of the 75 infrastructure projects in his proposed US$180 billion “Build, Build, Build” economic strategy are to be financed by China.
The two sides continue to differ over their territorial claims in the South China Sea but Duterte’s softly-softly attitude towards China is often attacked by his rivals.
