The Communist Chinese have to be loving it: What could be better than for the vice president of the Philippines to be issuing what’s seen as an assassination threat against that country’s president, who’s been challenging Chinese claims to the South China Sea?

In a contest between the scions of the country’s two most powerful political families, the struggle, tinged with corruption charges, has nothing to do with what Americans might have thought was the much more portentous clash between the Philippines and China over the South China Sea. 

The vice president, Sara Duterte, accused of purloining funds, touched off the current political crisis by saying, “If I get killed,” then “go kill” the president. She’s referring to Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos. She had, she said, already arranged for someone to “go kill” Mr. Marcos, his wife, and his cousin, the speaker of the Philippines house of representatives. 

“No joke, no joke,” she added for emphasis, but as far as the Chinese communists are concerned, the joke is on the Philippines. 

China’s Global Times, an offshoot of the Chinese Communist Party’s People’s Daily, predicted “the political struggle within the Philippines … could add uncertainties to the future policymaking of Manila on regional hotspot issues.” 

For Communist China, the good news is that Ms. Duterte, daughter of the previous Philippines president, Rodrigo Duterte, is likely to follow his example and adopt a conciliatory policy on China’s takeover of the South China Sea. 

“The former president successfully stabilized the regional hotspot issue and realized peaceful and win-win cooperation ties with China,” the Global Times quoted a professor at China Foreign Affairs University, Li Haidong, as saying. President Marcos, the professor said, “has unilaterally changed the status quo and stoked tensions in the region after he took office, making the Philippines a pawn on the chessboard of the U.S. game of great power competition.”

The brouhaha over the vice president easily eclipsed the latest harassment by the People’s Republic of China of Philippine fishing boats, as activists in the Philippine congress demanded Ms. Duterte’s impeachment for not just her threat against Mr. Marcos but also the alleged theft of more than $10 million in funds allocated for an educational program under her supervision. 

More alarming for Philippine security, the Philippines accused China of “a dangerous act of harassment” after it deployed a helicopter from one of its bases in the South China Sea to hover over Philippine fishing boats. 

The Chinese had quite a different version, denying anything to do with a helicopter while accusing Philippine fishing vessels of having “illegally gathered … under the pretext of fishing,” according to the Global Times. The paper quoted an official as saying the Chinese coast guard took “necessary management and control measures.” 

At the heart of the battle between the Philippines president and vice president is the rivalry of two immensely powerful family dynasties.

President Marcos is the son of Ferdinand Marcos, the late president forced to flee the Philippines to exile in Hawaii with his wife, Imelda, and family, including son Bongbong, at the height of the People Power Revolution in 1986.  Mr. Marcos Jr. won convincingly in 2022 in an uneasy alliance with Ms. Duterte, who ran in a separate contest under Philippine law. Her father could not run for a second six-year term under the Philippine constitution, drafted after the ouster of the first President Marcos. 

While the Philippine press played up the Marcos-Duterte feud, the Chinese focused on their essential differences in attitudes toward China.

 “The Marcos and the Duterte families were allies in the last election, and now they have big disagreements on internal and external policies,” the Global Times quoted a Southeast Asian studies analyst at the Chinese Academy on Social Sciences, Xu Liping, as saying. The Marcos Jr. administration, he said, could “play a ‘nationalist card’ and become more provocative on the South China Sea issue to handle internal pressure.” 

Possibly for that very reason, Mr. Marcos has said the move to impeach Ms. Duterte would be “a waste of time.” She, like the Chinese, appears to be thoroughly enjoying the notoriety. “They will repeatedly attack me,” a Philippine website that’s often critical of all sides, Rappler, quoted her as saying, ominously. “They can try, and then let’s see.”