The disputed waters in the South China Sea have been one of the featured stories in different online news outlets since 2016 when the Philippines received its Arbitration Award. This is where the maritime tensions between the Philippines and China have intensified. Through this idea, the present study has utilized a descriptive qualitative research design to scrutinize and document the most frequently used adjectives and adverbs in the selected Chinese online news articles to create a portrayal of the Philippines. The online news articles included in this study were extracted from Xinhua and Global Times online news outlets. These articles are published from June to September 2024. The analysis revealed that Chinese online news articles have described the Philippines negatively, stating that its actions are illegal and provocative. Due to the repeated actions done by the Philippines, online news articles have created an image of the Philippines as the aggressor in such maritime issues. This portrayal of the Philippines is further emphasized by framing China on the positive side of this issue. The results further show a huge difference between the sociocultural beliefs of both countries, resulting in a lack of political consensus. With this, it is recommended that the policymakers in the Philippines should use the inferences embedded in this study as their reference in refining the communicative strategies of the Philippines towards China.
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Marquez et al. (2025) studied this question.
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