The Philippines denounced China as an “aggressor” after vessels from the two countries collided on Sunday close to disputed islands in the strategic South China Sea.
No one was injured in the two separate incidents, although Manila reported damage to one of its vessels after the collisions close to Second Thomas Shoal. The isolated reef, named Ayungin in the Philippines and Ren’ai in China, has been the scene of repeated encounters between the two countries.
“All incidents like this will bolster the case that it’s not the Philippines that’s the aggressor but the other party, which is China,” Teresita Daza, a spokeswoman for the Philippine foreign ministry, said on Monday.
The defence minister, Gilbert Teodoro, said it was “a serious and egregious violation of international law and an escalation of their expansionist and aggressive action”.
According to the Philippines, a Chinese coastguard vessel crossed the bows and collided with a wooden civilian boat. It was carrying supplies to the Sierra Madre, a Second World war naval ship that Manila grounded on Second Thomas Shoal in 1999 to assert its sovereignty over the reef. The rusting hulk serves as a de facto base for an isolated detachment of Philippine marines, who are the object of scrutiny and harassment by Chinese forces.
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The Chinese deputy ambassador, Zhou Zhiyong, was summoned to receive a formal complaint from the Philippines foreign ministry. He rejected Manila’s version of events, insisting that it was the Philippine boat that caused the collision.
According to a statement by the Chinese embassy, Zhou urged Manila “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”.
An estimated $5 trillion of international trade passes by ship through the South China Sea each year, including oil that fuels the economies of China, Japan and South Korea. China claims sovereignty over most of the sea and rejects a ruling in 2016 by the Permanent Court of Arbitration, in the Hague, that dismissed its claim to rocks and reefs near the Philippines.
It has turned seven disputed reefs into military bases in recent years, more sophisticated than the Philippine wreck, with missile emplacements and runways suitable for fighter jets.
The United States regularly sends naval ships and military aircraft through and over the South China Sea in “freedom of navigation” operations, intended to assert the right to free passage.
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The US ambassador to the Philippines, MaryKay Carlson, wrote on Twitter/X: “The US condemns [China’s] latest disruption of a legal Philippine resupply mission to Ayungin shoal, putting the lives of Filipino service members at risk.”
In Washington, the state department reaffirmed that the 1951 defence treaty with the Philippines extended to attacks on Philippine forces and vessels in the South China Sea, which means serious armed conflict there could draw in the US.
Manila says it has made 465 diplomatic protests against Beijing since January 2020, including 55 this year.
In August, a Chinese coastguard ship used a water cannon against an earlier resupply mission to the Sierra Madre. In February, the Philippines accused China of endangering the lives of its coastguards by shining a laser weapon into their eyes as they sailed towards the reef.
