[OPINION] Beijing allies prove Chinese-language schools are political

Chinese-Filipino families, who simply want to pass on their language and heritage to their children, become primary targets of foreign influence For months, the Chinese embassy has insisted that Chinese-language education in the Philippines is “normal, open, and transparent.” Ambassador Jing Quan has dismissed talk of United Front work or political infiltration as “complete nonsense.” When Chinese teachers were abruptly pulled from the country in October, the embassy cited “safety” and blamed critics (especially me and Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro) for having “forced more than 180 Chinese teachers out.” But, on November 6, Huang Duanming, chairman of the Philippine Chinese Education Research Center (PCERC), settled the question decisively. With Ambassador Jing looking on approvingly, Huang charged every Chinese school in the Philippines to “uphold the one-China principle,” contribute to “Belt and Road construction,” help build Xi Jinping’s “community with a shared future for mankind” and “fulfill its responsibility to the cause of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” In other words, Huang instructed Chinese schools to advance Xi Jinping’s political agenda in the Philippines. Incredibly, Ambassador Jing then urged the same audience not to fear “smear campaigns” against Chinese-language education, by which he meant SeaLight’s reporting that has clearly documented the very United Front work that Jing denies and that Huang just demonstrated. Huang’s list of what he considers Chinese school responsibilities is the political program of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) almost verbatim, from Beijing’s hard-line stance on Taiwan to Xi’s signature slogans. It was directed at Filipino schools that educate Filipino children — almost all of whose families likely wish they could just get their kids a quality education without Beijing’s political interference. Communist Party-directed effort And Huang is no fringe figure. The PCERC he leads has coordinated Chinese-language education in the Philippines since 1991, and by his own account most of the country’s roughly 150 Chinese schools use its textbooks. That’s why this debate was never about teachers or students, regardless what Ambassador Jing or his allies claim. It’s about a highly organized, well-resourced, Party-directed effort by an aggressive foreign power to bend Philippine institutions to its own political ends. That effort has a name. The United Front Work Department is an important arm of the CCP that reports directly to its Central Committee. Its job is to win over people outside the Party and neutralize those it can’t. Abroad, it runs “overseas Chinese work,” using ethnic, cultural, and economic ties to mobilize Chinese communities on the Party’s behalf. Xi has revived Mao’s description of it as one of the Party’s “magic weapons” and tied it to “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” In 2018, Xi folded China’s Overseas Chinese Affairs Office into the same department to better target ethnic Chinese around the world for CCP-directed political work. Was DepEd National Capital Region used? The Party doesn’t hide its goals. Its United Front Work Regulations name unification with Taiwan, national rejuvenation, and the “community with a shared future” as objectives of its work with “overseas Chinese.” Three of Huang’s four points from November 6th are on that list. The PCERC doesn’t hide its ties either. By its own account, the PCERC cooperates with China’s Ministry of Education, the United Front Work Department, and the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office. In April, he gave the keynote at an embassy gathering of Confucius Institutes, Chinese-education bodies, and 40 Chinese-funded companies, where he said Chinese education must become an “efficient ecosystem” under the “overall coordination” of the Chinese embassy. Nor does the PCERC’s reach stop at Chinese schools. In 2025, the PCERC and a United Front group devoted to Taiwan’s “reunification” ran an essay contest that Huang coordinated with DepEd’s Metro Manila office to send to public schools, with student prizes of up to ₱30,000. The winners collected them at a Taiwan “reunification” rally, where China’s chargé d’affaires reinforced Beijing’s one-China principle as a “red line.” Just like the United States, the Philippines values its democratic liberties, including those of free speech and association, but retaining those choices depends on knowing when groups that pose as local civic organizations are actually acting as agents of a foreign government. The United Front works through local institutions Filipinos trust, from schools to chambers of commerce, borrowing their credibility while hiding its hand. Filipino-Chinese families as targets As I have said repeatedly, Chinese-Filipinos are not the problem. Their families built these schools over more than a century to pass on a language and a heritage, and they deserve the freedom to teach those to their children with pride and without harassment. Unfortunately, those same families have involuntarily become one of the United Front’s primary targets for its political interference campaign in the Philippines. That is not my opinion; it is a documented reality. Beijing can’t have it both ways. Its diplomats and allies can’t tell Chinese schools to advance the Communist Party’s political goals, then cry “smear” when someone translates their words into English and reads them aloud for all to hear. If the embassy truly wants geopolitics kept out of the classroom, it should start by instructing the PCERC to end its United Front political work in Chinese-language schools. I’m sure the first to thank them would be the students and their families. – Rappler.com Ray Powell is the executive director of the SeaLight Foundation, a US-based nonprofit organization that promotes maritime transparency and exposes gray-zone warfare. How does this make you feel? Loading