MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The United States renewed its warning Monday that it would defend the Philippines in the event of an armed attack under a 1951 treaty, after Chinese ships blocked two Philippine ships off a disputed shoal in the South China Sea and with them collided.
Philippine diplomats on Monday summoned an official from the Chinese Embassy in Manila to a strongly worded protest following Sunday’s collisions at Second Thomas Shoal. No injuries were reported, but the clashes damaged a Philippine Coast Guard vessel and a wooden-hulled supply boat operated by Navy personnel, officials said.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. called an emergency meeting with the defense minister and other senior military and security officials to discuss recent hostilities in the disputed waters. The Philippines and other neighbors of China have resisted Beijing’s sweeping territorial claims across nearly the entire South China Sea, and some, like Manila, have sought U.S. military support as incidents mount.
In a news conference after the meeting, Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro criticized China for resorting to “brutal force” that he said endangered Filipino crew members and distorting the facts to hide its aggression.
“The Philippine government considers China’s recent aggression to be 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 exclusive economic zone.”
Marcos ordered an investigation into the collisions at sea, Teodoro said, but declined to reveal what steps the Philippine government would take.
“We are taking these incidents seriously at the highest levels of government,” he said, adding that the government had called a press conference to provide accurate facts. “The Chinese government is deliberately concealing the truth,” the defense chief said.
The Philippines also plans to raise the alarm about Chinese ships’ dangerous maneuvers during talks between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations on a planned non-aggression pact – a “code of conduct” – to prevent a major armed conflict in the South China Sea. Beijing will host the three-day negotiations that begin Monday, two Philippine officials told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of a lack of authority to publicly discuss details of the talks.
Teodoro said it was “very ironic” that China was hosting the talks aimed at preventing major conflicts at sea while it had just committed “a blatant disregard for international law.”
The territorial disputes between China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei have long been seen as the flashpoint of a delicate fault line in the US-China rivalry.
About five Chinese coast guard ships, eight escort ships 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 Philippine forces aboard a stranded navy ship, the Philippine, at Second Thomas Shoal said Coast Guard Commodore Jay Tarriela.
During the standoff, one of the Philippine coast guard ships and a supply boat were hit by a Chinese coast guard ship and a vessel, respectively. Only one of the two Filipino boats managed to deliver supplies to Philippine forces, Tarriela said.
The senior Chinese diplomat, who was summoned by Filipino foreign officials, reiterated China’s claim that the Philippine ships had entered Chinese territory.
“China once again calls on the Philippines to take seriously China’s serious concerns, abide by its promise to stop provocations at sea, stop taking dangerous steps, stop baselessly attacking and slandering China, and to tow 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 on the shoal after it intentionally ran aground in 1999.
The Chinese coast guard on Sunday blamed the collisions on Filipino ships and said the Filipinos were transporting construction materials to reinforce their outpost on the shoal.
The United States and other allies expressed concern about China’s actions. Washington renewed its warning that it was obligated under a 1951 mutual defense treaty to defend the Philippines if Philippine forces, ships and aircraft were subjected to 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 dangerous and unlawful actions of the People’s Republic of China Coast Guard and maritime militias that hindered a Philippine resupply mission to Second Thomas Shoal on October 22,” the US State Department said in a statement Embassy in Manila.
She blamed the dangerous maneuvers of Chinese ships for the collisions, adding that they “violated international law by intentionally obstructing the exercise of freedom of navigation on the high seas by the Philippine ships.”
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 the Second Thomas Shoal case.
Washington does not claim ownership of the disputed sea but has deployed military forces to police the waters to promote freedom of navigation and overflight – moves that have angered Beijing, which has warned the U.S. to stop moving into a supposedly all-Asian sea to interfere in a dispute.
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Mistreanu reported from Beijing. Associated Press journalists Joeal Calupitan and Aaron Favila contributed to this report.