In August 1973, four hostages were held for six days inside a bank vault in Stockholm, Sweden. Their captors strapped dynamite to their bodies, fired at police, and threatened execution. Yet when the siege ended, something baffling happened. The victims refused to testify against their kidnappers. One woman even defended the gunman publicly, saying she felt safer with him than with the police who tried to rescue her.
Psychologists, struggling to explain this inversion of loyalty, coined the term Stockholm Syndrome to describe the paradoxical attachment of the abused to their abuser. In such cases, the human mind, trapped between terror and dependence, rewrites reality to survive. Small mercies such as a glass of water or a kind word are magnified into proof of compassion. Gratitude replaces outrage, and survival becomes the new morality.
Half a century later, that same psychological pattern can be glimpsed far from the banks of Sweden, in the waters of the West Philippine Sea. Here, the captor wields not a gun but a water cannon, not dynamite but economic power. The hostages are not individuals but a nation taught to fear confrontation.
When China blocks our fishermen or blasts our Coast Guard vessels, the expected reaction should be indignation. Yet among a vocal minority, often aligned with former president Rodrigo Duterte, the response is startlingly submissive: “We can’t win against China.” That sentence, repeated like a mantra, has become the national equivalent of a hostage’s whisper: Don’t make him angry. It dresses fear in the language of pragmatism and calls surrender realism.
In 2025, pro-Duterte blogger Mark Lopez, invited to speak before Congress, even claimed that “we also use water cannons on China.” It was false, and he later apologized, but the impulse behind it was revealing. It was not about truth. It was about preserving the illusion that we are equals in an unequal relationship. The bullied must pretend the bullying is mutual, because admitting powerlessness is unbearable.
If Stockholm Syndrome describes the emotional bond between hostage and captor, what we are seeing might be called Beijing Syndrome: a political trauma bond between a smaller nation and the power that intimidates it. Beijing Syndrome begins with fear—“We can’t win”—grows through dependence—“At least they are building our bridges”—and matures into denial—“Both sides are at fault.” Eventually it turns inward, directing scorn not toward the aggressor but toward fellow Filipinos who assert our rights. In its final form, the victim defends the violator and mocks the defender.
This is not stupidity. It is learned helplessness, the same psychological adaptation that allows captives to survive confinement. The Duterte era normalized that helplessness, teaching Filipinos that silence is strategy and appeasement is wisdom. Over time, fear hardened into policy.
A nation that internalizes helplessness loses more than territory. It loses moral orientation. When coercion is renamed cooperation and intimidation is called partnership, conscience itself becomes confused. The tragedy of Beijing Syndrome is not that China is strong, but that some Filipinos have accepted weakness as destiny.
Contrast this with Vietnam. Equally small beside its giant neighbor, Vietnam asserts its maritime rights with quiet firmness. It trades with China yet never bows to it. That balance, dignity without hostility, is what sovereignty looks like when fear no longer dictates policy.
The cure for Beijing Syndrome is not hatred of China but the recovery of self-respect. We can value trade without surrendering truth and seek peace without mistaking silence for diplomacy. The first step is naming the abuse for what it is, not to inflame but to awaken. Because once fear is named, it begins to lose its power.
Stockholm taught the world how fear can turn affection into captivity. Beijing is teaching us how power can turn helplessness into policy. The way out is the same in both cases: to remember who we were before the fear began, a free people standing on the side of truth, even when the waves are larger than our boats.