MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The US renewed a warning Monday that it will defend the Philippines in case of an armed assault underneath a 1951 treaty, after Chinese language ships blocked and collided with two Filipino vessels off a contested shoal within the South China Sea.
Philippine diplomats summoned a Chinese language Embassy official in Manila on Monday for a strongly worded protest following Sunday’s collisions off Second Thomas Shoal. No accidents had been reported however the encounters broken a Philippine coast guard ship and a wooden-hulled provide boat operated by navy personnel, officers stated.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. referred to as an emergency assembly with the protection secretary and different high navy and safety officers to debate the most recent hostilities within the disputed waters. The Philippines and different neighbors of China have resisted Beijing’s sweeping territorial claims over just about the whole South China Sea, and a few, like Manila, have sought U.S. navy assist as incidents multiply.
After the assembly, Protection Secretary Gilberto Teodoro blasted China in a information convention for resorting to “brute drive” that he stated endangered Filipino crew members and for twisting the details to hide its aggression.
“The Philippine authorities views the most recent aggression by China as a blatant violation of worldwide regulation,” Teodoro stated. “China has no authorized proper or authority to conduct regulation enforcement operations in our territorial waters and in our unique financial zone.”
Marcos ordered an investigation of the high-sea collisions, Teodoro stated, however he refused to reveal what steps the Philippine authorities would take.
“We’re taking these incidents critically on the highest ranges of presidency,” he stated, including that the federal government referred to as for a information convention to offer correct details. “The Chinese language authorities is intentionally obfuscating the reality,” the protection chief stated.
The territorial conflicts involving China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei have lengthy been thought to be a flashpoint in a fragile fault line within the U.S.-China rivalry.
About 5 Chinese language coast guard ships, eight accompanying vessels and two navy ships shaped a blockade on Sunday to stop two Philippine coast guard ships and two boats from delivering meals and different provides to Filipino forces stationed at Second Thomas Shoal aboard a marooned navy ship, Philippine coast guard Commodore Jay Tarriela stated.
Throughout the standoff, one of many Philippine coast guard ships and a provide boat had been individually hit by a Chinese language coast guard ship and a vessel. Solely one of many two Filipino boats managed to ship provides to Philippine forces, Tarriela stated.
The senior Chinese language diplomat who was summoned by Philippine overseas officers repeated China’s assertion that the Philippine vessels intruded into Chinese language territory.
“China as soon as once more urges the Philippines to take critically China’s grave issues, honor its promise, cease making provocations at sea, cease making harmful strikes, cease groundlessly attacking and slandering China, and to tow away the illegally ‘grounded’ warship as quickly as attainable,” Zhou Zhiyong was quoted as saying by the Chinese language Embassy in Manila.
He was referring to the Sierra Madre, which serves as Manila’s territorial outpost on the shoal after being intentionally ran aground in 1999.
The Chinese language coast guard on Sunday blamed the Philippine vessels for inflicting the collisions and stated the Filipinos had been carrying building supplies to strengthen their outpost on the shoal.
The U.S. and different allies expressed alarm over the Chinese language motion. Washington renewed a warning that it’s obligated to defend the Philippines underneath a 1951 Mutual Protection Treaty if Filipino forces, ships and plane come underneath an armed assault, together with “these of its coast guard — wherever within the South China Sea.”
“The US stands with our Philippine allies within the face of the Folks’s Republic of China coast guard and maritime militia’s harmful and illegal actions obstructing an October 22 Philippine resupply mission to Second Thomas Shoal,” the U.S. State Division stated in a press release issued by its embassy in Manila.
It blamed the damaging maneuvers by China’s ships for the collisions and added that they “violated worldwide regulation by deliberately interfering with the Philippine vessels’ train of excessive seas freedom of navigation.”
The State Division additionally cited a 2016 arbitration ruling that invalidated China’s expansive claims to the South China Sea on historic grounds, together with in Second Thomas Shoal.
Washington lays no claims to the disputed sea however has deployed forces to patrol the waters to advertise freedom of navigation and overflight — strikes which have angered Beijing, which has warned the U.S. to cease meddling in what it says is a purely Asian dispute.
___
Mistreanu reported from Beijing. Related Press journalists Joeal Calupitan and Aaron Favila contributed to this report.