A Philippine digital newspaper has hit back at China's disputed claim over Batanes with a satirical Facebook post invoking Beijing's own lost territory of Vladivostok. Daily Tribune's post, headlined 'Bully Manila, Not Moscow', argued that if historical claims justified China's assertion over the Philippine province, then Beijing should logically be pursuing the Russian port city too.
The jibe followed a real and escalating diplomatic row. Chinese scholars had argued at a symposium that Batanes was a natural extension of Taiwan and therefore belonged to China, a claim Philippine officials have firmly rejected.
