This image from a video released by the Armed Forces of the Philippines shows a Chinese coast guard ship with bow number 5203 after bumping a Filipino supply boat as they approached Second Thomas Shoal, locally called Ayungin Shoal, in the disputed South China Sea. Photo / AP
This image from a video released by the Armed Forces of the Philippines shows a Chinese coast guard ship with bow number 5203 after bumping a Filipino supply boat as they approached Second Thomas Shoal, locally called Ayungin Shoal, in the disputed South China Sea. Photo / AP
The United States has renewed a warning that it would defend the Philippines in case of an armed attack under a 1951 treaty. It follows Chinese ships blocking and colliding with two Philippine vessels off a contested shoal in the South China Sea.
Philippine diplomats summoned a Chinese embassy official in Manila on Monday for a strongly worded protest after Sunday’s collisions off Second Thomas Shoal. No injuries were reported but the encounters damaged a Philippine coast guard ship and a wooden-hulled supply boat operated by navy personnel, officials said.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr called an emergency meeting with his defence secretary and other top military and security officials to discuss the latest hostilities in the disputed waters. The Philippines and other neighbours of China have resisted Beijing’s sweeping territorial claims over virtually the entire South China Sea and some, like the Philippines, have sought US military support as incidents multiply.
After the meeting, Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro blasted China in a news conference for resorting to “brute force” that he said endangered Filipino crew members and for twisting the facts to conceal its aggression.
“The Philippine government views the latest aggression by China as a blatant violation of international law,” Teodoro said. “China has no legal right or authority to conduct law enforcement operations in our territorial waters and in our exclusive economic zone.”
A Chinese militia boat, top, and Philippine coast guard boat come together off Second Thomas Shoal on Sunday. Photo / AP
Marcos had ordered an investigation of the collisions, Teodoro said, but he refused to disclose what steps the government would take.
“We are taking these incidents seriously at the highest levels of government,” he said, adding that the government called the news conference to provide accurate facts. “The Chinese government is deliberately obfuscating the truth,” Teodoro said.
The Philippines also plans to raise its alarm over the Chinese ships’ dangerous manoeuvres in talks between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations on a proposed non-aggression pact – a “code of conduct” – to prevent armed conflict in the South China Sea. Beijing is hosting the three-day negotiations this week.
Teodoro said it was “very ironic” that China was hosting the talks when it had just committed “a blatant disregard of international law”.
The territorial conflicts involving China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei have long been regarded as a flashpoint in a delicate fault line in the US-China rivalry.
About five Chinese coast guard ships, eight accompanying vessels and two navy ships formed a blockade on Sunday to prevent two Philippine coast guard ships and two boats from delivering food and other supplies to Filipino forces stationed at Second Thomas Shoal on a marooned navy ship.
During the standoff, one of the Philippine coast guard ships and a supply boat were separately hit by a Chinese coast guard ship and another vessel. Only one of the two Filipino boats managed to deliver supplies to Philippine forces, the Philippine coast guard said.
A Chinese coast guard ship with the bow number 5203 bumps a Philippine supply boat as it approaches Second Thomas Shoal. Photo / AP
The senior Chinese diplomat who was summoned by Philippine foreign officials repeated China’s assertion that the Philippine vessels intruded into Chinese territory.
“China once again urges the Philippines to take seriously China’s grave concerns, honour its promise, stop making provocations at sea, stop making dangerous moves, stop groundlessly attacking and slandering China, and to tow away the illegally ‘grounded’ warship as soon as possible,” Zhou Zhiyong was quoted as saying by the Chinese embassy in Manila.
He was referring to the Sierra Madre, which serves as Manila’s territorial outpost at the shoal after being deliberately run aground in 1999.
The Chinese coast guard blamed the Philippine vessels for causing Sunday’s collisions and said the Filipinos were carrying construction materials to strengthen their outpost at the shoal.
The US and other allies expressed alarm over the Chinese action. Washington renewed a warning that it was obligated to defend the Philippines under a 1951 Mutual Defence Treaty if Filipino forces, ships and aircraft came under an armed attack, including “those of its coast guard – anywhere in the South China Sea”.
“The United States stands with our Philippine allies in the face of the People’s Republic of China coast guard and maritime militia’s dangerous and unlawful actions obstructing an October 22 Philippine resupply mission to Second Thomas Shoal,” the US State Department said in a statement issued by its embassy in Manila.
It blamed dangerous manoeuvres by China’s ships for the collisions and added that they “violated international law by intentionally interfering with the Philippine vessels’ exercise of high-seas freedom of navigation”.
The State Department also cited a 2016 arbitration ruling that invalidated China’s expansive claims to the South China Sea on historical grounds, including in Second Thomas Shoal.
Washington lays no claims to the disputed sea but has deployed forces to patrol the waters to promote freedom of navigation and overflight. Such moves have angered Beijing, which has warned the US to stop meddling in what it says is a purely Asian dispute.
