China hits Philippine defense chief with entry ban over South China Sea remarks

BEIJING (AP) — The Philippines defense secretary and his family have been banned from entering China over comments he has made about Beijing’s claims in the South China Sea, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Thursday.

Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro and his wife and kids are banned from entering China, including Hong Kong, while individuals and groups in China are also banned from having any sort of transaction with Teodoro, the ministry said in a statement

Teodoro is known for using strong language to counter China’s claims over the strategic waters, calling them a “fiction and lie” that no Southeast Asian country would accept.

Teodoro also said last year that Chinese President Xi Jinping runs a “small dictatorship and autocracy” and that his “clique” in the Chinese Communist Party is to blame for what he called Beijing’s aggressive and illegal policies, not Xi’s predecessors or the Chinese people.

The statement from China’s foreign ministry said that Teodoro has “issued many fallacies about China, harming China’s legitimate interests and damages the China-Philippines relationship.”

There was no immediate reaction from Teodoro or from the Philippine government.

While multiple countries have disputing claims with China over the South China Sea, the greatest tensions over the issue have been with the Philippines, where officials have been outspoken on the issue.

The two sides have taken to sharing videos and photos of their confrontations at sea, which have at times turned violent.

An international arbitration panel invalidated China’s claims over the waters in a 2016 ruling based on the 1982 U.N. Convention of the Law of the Sea, but Beijing refused to participate in the Philippines-initiated arbitration or recognize the decision.