The Batanes Symposium as PRC Gray-Zone Lawfare
July 13, 2026
By Jack Lindstrom
Jack Lindstrom is a junior researcher with the Mackinder Forum and the founder of Arctic Ledger, where his work focuses on gray-zone tactics, chokepoint geography, and great-power competition in the Indo-Pacific and Arctic theaters. He was selected to represent Arizona as a U.S. delegate in a bilateral exchange with Chengdu, China, through the Chengdu Sister Cities program, where discussions with Chinese counterparts touched on foreign policy issues alongside broader cultural and diplomatic engagement. He is currently pursuing a Master of International Affairs at UC San Diego's School of Global Policy and Strategy (GPS).
The Ships, the Symposium, and the Spokesperson
The waves break on the hulls of steel Chinese cruisers and destroyers in Philippine waters. These vessels, which multiplied from a handful of law-enforcement craft in early June to a sustained coast guard presence by mid-month, were undeclared. As such, the ships naturally create provocation for Manila; the rationale that followed this provocation was legal justification. Crucially, however, one must not forget that it was the fleet that first came, and the explanation that followed. There was no decree, nor an established line of communication to provide an exigency to the small military, established through routine patrols, which appeared over the cresting waves; rather, China asked for forgiveness, not permission. And yet, it was that forgiveness which salted the wound.
Traditional embassies attempt to quash false territorial stories, particularly shameful ones, with a bland statement denying the occurrence. Traditional embassies explain, deny, and move on from incidents; it is easier to resolve than to draw out internationally embarrassing incidents, or potentially concerning maneuvering. However, Chinese Embassy Deputy Spokesperson Guo Wei acted contrary to this diplomatic logic and publicly criticized the Philippine Coast Guard spokesperson, Commodore Jay Tarriela. This criticism followed Commodore Tarriela's inquiry into Ambassador Jing Quan's goings-on in Batanes, Philippines.
An academic event at Jinan University in Guangzhou, the symposium, took place on June 30th, 2026, wherein scholars from Jinan University, Nanjing University, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and other institutions concluded that Batanes is a “natural geographical extension” of Taiwan and therefore falls under Chinese sovereignty. The logical extension of this finding was the conclusion that the Philippine administration of the islands “lacks historical and legal basis.” Ambassador Jing Quan visited Batanes from June 16-18th, within two weeks of the symposium, although with no evident connection. Following the symposium, on July 2nd, Guangdong's state-run Newsgd/“South App” published a report on the symposium's conclusions, which was then circulated. This led to Tarriela's inquiry.
Tarriela publicly questioned whether the ambassador's prior visit was connected to, inferring potential scouting for, the claim the symposium was primed to make. This sparked the criticism from Guo Wei on Tarriela, who insisted that the symposium and visit were disconnected, going as far as accusing Philippine officials of deliberately brewing hostility between the nations. This confrontational perspective from the Chinese embassy marks a novel shift in policy; an evidently unconventional one. The embassy simultaneously distances the ambassador's visit from the symposium, while also accusing the Philippine officials of “creating unnecessary hostility”; it is a minor practice in doublethink. To establish justification to claim the islands while also claiming the present owners are acting in a hostile way creates a justification for escalation from a benign questioning, albeit one paired with an accusation, from a Coast Guard spokesperson. The tension held between these two opposing thoughts, that the claim is not official policy while also not limiting its future utility, is a fundamentally tense stance held by the Chinese embassy.
The scholars at the symposium, originating from Jinan University, Nanjing University, and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, among others, amounted to over 10 scholars and experts. It was these experts who concluded that Batanes is a geographical extension of Taiwan and therefore belongs to China. Critically, the nearby nations, Japan and the Philippines, are not able to establish maritime delimitation talks, as the area is legally intercepted by Taiwan, resting between the two negotiating states. This forces the military of each nation into a stagnation, rather than illegal actions. The scholars at the symposium provided an evidentiary basis of Ming and Qing dynastic jurisdiction records, Ivatan-Tao cultural ties, as well as a contested reading of the 1898 Treaty of Paris and the 1946 Treaty of Manila to establish their claim on Batanes.
Coordination, Not Coincidence: Timing, Institutions, and Intent
However, the Jinan University web statement was taken down by July 10th, once the story spread internationally. It is this repeal which marks the potential miscalculation of the consequences of the claim and the international shame of the incident. Beijing's official position claimed that it refuses to “comment on the views of the academic community,” through the Foreign Ministry, a fundamentally non-denial of the claims. The following day, the Global Times, a state tabloid in China, ran a piece claiming China “should take corresponding actions to assert its sovereignty,” including regular Coast Guard patrols and scaled-up military “countermeasures.” This surpasses a university statement; it is the mouthpiece of the government through state media deliberately promoting provocative action, international engagement, and expansion to claim foreign land as its own. It is power, ambition, weaponized through loose justification, but without the international legitimacy required to establish clear context for conflict, yet. The escalation ladder, however, posits that small transgressions will eventually amount to larger conflicts; the criticism of the Philippine Coast Guard upon questioning may serve as the start of a long chain of events leading to a catalyst of conflict, or more simply, may serve as a defensive position to offensive accusations, following its own offensive statements.
In the field of grand strategy lie the dimensions of time, scale, and space; although China primarily focuses in the open on space, evident through the nine-dash line, the importance of the Belt and Road Initiative, and most recently, the Batanes. However, China also seems to focus on the dimension of time; in May 2026, President Marcos of the Philippines and Japanese PM Sanae Takaichi met and announced plans to launch talks on delimiting EEZ/continental shelf boundaries in waters east of Taiwan. A month later, the Philippine islands of that very region are now contested by China. Prior to the academic finding of China's claim of Batanes, China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning had already objected to the broader Philippines-Japan alignment, thus indicating the potential underlying strategy China held regarding such actions. SeaLight of Stanford had documented that Beijing framed the Japan-Philippines talks as an infringement, then used that framing as a pretext for Coast Guard operations in the same waters; this occurred before the symposium. And so, the ships crested the white caps of the South China Sea and into Philippine waters. On June 7th, Chinese vessels passed through the Bashi Channel into the open Pacific; the Global Times dubbed it a “sovereignty declaration.” The organizers of the symposium, following roughly three weeks later, framed the event as a response to the Japan-Philippines talks, further creating a line of motive to apply pressure to the region. On July 8th and 9th, the National West Philippine Sea Summit marked the 10th anniversary of the 2016 Hague arbitral ruling; and it was within a short proximity of time that the claim surfaced, likely non-coincidental given the symbolic stakes of the summit. The legal narrative established in the symposium was built in direct parallel to the physical presence of warships, seen in the Bashi Channel patrols, which are simultaneously moving towards an aligned policy objective of undercutting the Japan-Philippines EEZ talks and justifying continuous PRC presence in the Bashi Channel/Luzon Strait.
The summit was not simply a small gathering of professors, who made a claim about sovereignty with little impact. Were that the case, the escalation of accusations would not have occurred. Jinan University is a 211 Project national university, and as such is jointly constructed by the United Front Work Department (UFWD) of the CPC Central Committee, the Ministry of Education, and Guangdong Province. This translates to a direct relationship with the state and national government, as the UFWD is a CCP body directly responsible for overseas influence operations. The same force that dictates overseas influence operations is rooted at the same university where the symposium occurred. Jinan University additionally hosts a dedicated Center for Philippine Studies oriented around strategy. Fundamentally, this is not an independent scholarship that wrote itself into a sensitive claim; instead, it is an institution that was established deliberately for this kind of soft power and narrative work to build legitimacy.
Manila's Response and the Chokepoint Stakes
The provocation in Manila took little time to take effect. DFA spokesperson Analyn Ratonel claimed that sovereignty was “settled and not up for debate,” and called the claims “flights of fancy” not worthy of dignifying. Secretary Ma. Lazaro additionally noted that the PRC's own Chinese Consulate General in Laoag has Batanes in its Philippine-assigned consular district, claiming China's consular paperwork treats Batanes as a Philippine territory, and thus contradicting any statements of claim over Batanes. Furthermore, Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. described the claim as “baseless” and “ludicrous,” but more importantly, as “a sign of preconceived intention,” and as such ordered increased AFP patrols across the Philippine maritime domain. Another step, as it were, up the escalation ladder.
Across the Pacific at the Stanford Gordian Knot Center, Ray Powell described the incident as a “trial balloon” and thus predicted an official Chinese government report will follow, followed by official statements. The core framing Powell established was the notion that China used the Japan-Philippines announcement as a pretext to run patrols it wanted to run anyway. The ships did, after all, come before the statement, and posit a clear intention regarding claiming sovereignty; additionally, it is easier to take over an island quietly if the navy is already in the neighborhood.
The final word on the precarious nature of the claims set by each embassy and nation reflects clear international intentions and actions that follow suit. The Batanes sit on the Bashi Channel, serving as a strategic gap in the first island chain, which links the South China Sea to the open Pacific, thus making it directly imperative to naval powers as a chokepoint of leverage. In militant policy, such a chokepoint is leverage that China requires to expand into the Pacific, develop a blue-water navy, and amass power. In conjunction with power must come legitimacy, and as such the academic claim, although deniable from the state, serves as an influence campaign that, if successful, is reusable elsewhere across the first island chain or other disputed waters. Should this be established as a pattern, it would allow Chinese action to be continuously expansive with the steady beat of naval involvement, followed by a statement, followed by action and escalation. First come the ships, seen as no threat at all, then come the statements of sovereignty, giving the ships incentive to remain, and last comes the escalation, giving the ships reason to fire. Lastly, this serves as a pressure test in Japan-Philippines relations, serving as a direct response to the talks of opening EEZ, testing not only Japan-Philippine alignment and coordination, but also US involvement in the region. Should Powell's prediction of PRC endorsement arise, in tow with expanded patrol activity, the path set by China is clear, and a pattern will be established for quiet conquest.
