Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Huang Xilian was “surprised” by Philippine Ambassador to Washington Jose Manuel “Babe” Romualdez’s claim that they met and discussed about the latter’s phone getting hacked multiple times by China.

Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Huang Xilian and Philippine Ambassador to Washington Jose Manuel Romualdez (Photos from Ambassadors Huang, Romualdez)

In a response to media inquiries on Monday, Feb. 3, the Chinese Embassy in Manila denied that such a meeting took place recently.

“With regard to the report of Ambassador Romualdez saying he talked to Ambassador Huang about the so-called Chinese hacking his phone, I verified the story with Ambassador Huang, he was surprised by such a story,” the embassy said.

It added that Huang “hasn't met Ambassador Romualdez for a long time, the two ambassadors have never touched upon the so-called Chinese hacking issue and Ambassador Huang doesn't know where Ambassador Romualdez got this story from.”

A media report quoted Romualdez as saying during last week's forum at the American University that China has attempted to hack his phone a number of times already.

Noting that he already changed his phone “four or five times,” the ambassador recalled an undated meeting with Huang, with whom he joked with about China needing to stop hacking his phone because he couldn’t afford to keep buying a new one.

The envoy said the Chinese ambassador “laughed it off.”

The Philippines and China have been at loggerheads for decades now because of Beijing’s overlapping maritime and territorial claims in the South China Sea, a region that sees more than $3.4 trillion worth of global trade pass by.

Manila has competing claims with China over several features of the resource-rich region, and dragged Beijing to an international arbitration case that the Philippines won in 2016.

Aside from the two countries, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Brunei also have claims in the region.