Chinese media pushes 'Philippines as aggressor’ narrative before viral Marcos deepfake

A relentless months-long campaign by Chinese state media to depict the Philippines as the aggressor in the South China Sea preceded the viral spread of the “deepfake” audio of Marcos allegedly ordering an attack on China.

MANILA, Philippines — Chinese state media have routinely portrayed the Philippines as a provocative and aggressive country in the West Philippine Sea following the private meeting between former President Rodrigo Duterte and Chinese President Xi Jinping in July 2023, with most articles published right after an altercation between the two countries in the tense waterways. 

Every month since August 2023, the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda apparatus has published news articles or editorials that claim the Philippines was “stirring up trouble” or “making provocations at sea,” typically hours or days after Chinese vessels block or attack much smaller Filipino boats. 

Philstar.com’s monitoring over nine months found more than 60 such articles and/or statements from media outfits owned or associated with the Chinese government. Most statements are published by People’s Daily and The Global Times, newspapers controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.

While local media and influencers targeting Filipinos have not echoed this narrative on the same scale, there appeared to be a recent attempt to sow confusion among Filipinos over whether the Philippines was an aggressor. This was done through the recently viral “deepfake” audio of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. supposedly ordering the military to attack China — the origins of which remain unknown but is believed to have come from a foreign source. 

Besides framing the Philippines as an instigator, Chinese social media influencers and anonymous accounts have also pounced on the Duterte-led Mindanao independence campaign in the Philippines to spread rumors of an all-out civil war in the country. 

These articles have some of the markings of an influence operation that Philstar.com is tracking across all social media platforms, groups and spaces on the internet.

In July 2023, the Philippine government issued a statement commemorating the seventh anniversary of the 2016 Hague ruling that invalidated