Chinese and Philippine coast guard vessels yesterday collided in the disputed South China Sea and four Filipino crewmembers were injured in high-seas confrontations.
The China Coast Guard ships and accompanying vessels blocked the Philippine Coast Guard and supply vessels off the disputed Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) and executed dangerous maneuvers that caused two minor collisions between the Chinese ships and two of the Philippine vessels, Philippine officials said.
The BRP Sindangan of the Philippine Coast Guard had minor structural damage from the collision that happened shortly after dawn. Over an hour later, another Chinese coast guard ship first blocked then collided with a supply boat the Philippine coast guard was escorting, the Philippine officials said.
Photo: AFP / Philippine Coast Guard
The supply boat, crewed by Filipino navy personnel, was later hit by water cannon blasts from two Chinese coast guard ships. Its windshield shattered, injuring at least four Filipino crewmembers, a statement from the Philippine government task force dealing with territorial disputes said.
The actions by the Chinese was “another attempt to illegally impede or obstruct a routine resupply and rotation mission,” the task force said.
“China’s latest unprovoked acts of coercion and dangerous maneuvers” against Philippine ships en route to deliver supplies and fresh troops to the Philippine-occupied shoal “put the lives of our people at risk and caused actual injury to Filipinos,” it said.
The Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs summoned China’s deputy ambassador to convey a protest against the China Coast Guard’s actions, which it said were unacceptable.
“The Philippines demands that Chinese vessels leave the vicinity of Ayungin Shoal immediately,” the department said in a statement, using the Philippine name for the contested shoal.
A small Philippine marine and navy contingent has kept watch onboard a rusting warship, the BRP Sierra Madre, which has been marooned since the late 1990s in the shallows of the Second Thomas Shoal.
China also claims the shoal lying off the western Philippines and has surrounded the atoll with coast guard, navy and other ships to press its claims and prevent Filipino forces from delivering construction materials to fortify the Sierra Madre in a decades-long standoff.
The shoal was the site of several tense skirmishes between Chinese and Philippine coast guard ships last year.
The Chinese coast guard said in a statement that “it took control measures in accordance with the law against Philippine ships that illegally intruded into the waters adjacent to Renai Reef,” the name Beijing uses for Second Thomas Shoal.
A Chinese coast guard spokesperson said a Philippine ship deliberately rammed a Chinese coast guard vessel, causing a minor scratch.
Washington strongly condemned the Chinese coast guard’s actions and US Ambassador to the Philippines MaryKay Carlson said that the US stands with the Philippines and proponents of international law.
Australia and Japan separately expressed their concern over China’s actions.
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