Manila, Philippines — Chinese coast guard vessels backed by navy ships fired powerful water cannons and blocked and sideswiped a Philippine patrol vessel on Wednesday in renewed aggression at a disputed shoal in the South China Sea, Philippine officials said.
U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines, MaryKay Carlson, condemned China’s “unlawful use of water cannons and dangerous maneuvers,” accusing Beijing in a social media post of putting “lives at risk” by disrupting a Philippine maritime operation.
“We condemn these actions and stand with our like-minded friends, partners, allies in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific,” Carlson said.
China claims virtually the entire South China Sea as its territory, but that claim overlaps with the territorial waters, exclusive economic zones and high seas claims of the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan. Indonesia has also had confrontations with the Chinese coast guard, which backs Beijing’s fishing fleets.
Aaron Favila/NTF-WPS via AP
The long-simmering territorial disputes between China and America’s allies and other Asian nations are a delicate fault line in the regional rivalry between Washington and Beijing. The U.S. lays no claims in the South China Sea, which is a key global shipping route, but has declared that freedom of navigation and overflight, and the peaceful resolution of the conflicts, are among its core national interests.
The U.S. has warned that it’s obligated to defend the Philippines, a treaty ally, if Filipino forces come under attack in the South China Sea.
China and Philippines accuse each other of aggression at sea
Three Philippine coast guard and bureau of fisheries vessels were on routine patrol to protect Filipino fishermen at Scarborough Shoal when several Chinese coast guard and navy ships approached and staged “aggressive actions” after dawn, the Philippine coast guard said.
Liu Dejun, a spokesperson for China’s Coast Guard, said four Philippine ships had “dangerously approached” the coast guard’s “normal law enforcement patrol vessels,” forcing the Chinese forces to “exercise control” around the Scarborough Shoal, which China claims as its territory and calls Huangyan Island.
Liu said one of the Philippine craft ignored warnings, making maneuvers that “seriously threatened” the safety of a coast guard vessel.
“We warn the Philippines to immediately stop infringement, provocation and propaganda, otherwise it will be responsible for all consequences,” he said.
China has increasingly accused the Philippines and other Asian neighbors of violating its sovereignty in contested offshore regions. It has vowed to defend what Beijing considers its territory, despite a 2016 international arbitration decision that invalidated China’s historical claims to the waters around Scarborough Shaol.
Despite the Chinese ships’ “reckless” maneuvers, the Philippine coast guard and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resource said they renewed their “commitment to protecting the rights and safety of our fishermen within our maritime jurisdiction.”
“We will continue to be vigilant in safeguarding our national interests in the West Philippine Sea,” the two Philippine law enforcement agencies said, using the Philippine name for the seas off the archipelago’s western coast.
The Chinese maritime maneuvers “are not standard law enforcement actions,” Philippine coast guard Commodore Jay Tarriela said, adding they “should be interpreted as unlawful aggression by international law violators.”
The latest clash in the South China Sea came after a respite of more than a month while back-to-back major storms prevented many Philippine fishing and commercial vessels from venturing into dangerously rough waters.
