The Philippine Foreign Secretary described the boats as “public”. (Representative)
Manila, Philippines:
The Philippines on Thursday accused Chinese Coast Guard ships of spraying water on boats supplying Filipino marines in the disputed South China Sea and ordered Beijing to “retreat”.
Foreign Secretary Teodoro Loxin said he had expressed “outrage, condemnation and protest” to Beijing over the incident, which he said took place on Tuesday as Philippine boats were traveling to the second Thomas Shoal in the Spratly Islands.
“Fortunately, no one was hurt, but our boats had to abort their re-supply mission,” Loxin said in a statement on Twitter, describing the actions of the three Chinese ships as “illegal.”
Loxin described the Philippine boats as “public”, suggesting that they were civilian ships, and that they were covered by a mutual defense agreement with the United States.
“China has no law enforcement authority in and around these areas,” he said. “They should take heed and back down.”
Tensions increased this year on resource-rich seas after hundreds of Chinese ships were discovered at Whitson Reef, which is also in the Spratly Archipelago.
With competing claims from Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam, China lays claim to almost the entire sea, through which billions of dollars of trade passes annually.
The disputed waters also have valuable fishing grounds and are believed to sit atop vast oil and gas deposits.
Beijing ignored a 2016 decision by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague that said its historic claim to most of the sea was baseless.
‘We don’t ask permission’
China controls several reefs in the South China Sea, including the Scarborough Shoal – which Beijing seized from Manila in 2012 – and is just 240 kilometers (150 mi) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon.
It has asserted its stance by building small shoals and rocks in military bases along with airstrips and port facilities.
After China’s capture of Mischief Reef in the mid-1990s, the Philippines abandoned an abandoned naval vessel atop the nearby Second Thomas Shoal to assert its territorial claim to Manila. Members of the Philippine Marines are based there.
Loxin said the shoal was within the Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone, and that China’s “failure to exercise self-restraint” threatened the special relationship between the two countries.
“We don’t ask permission to do what we need to do in our area,” he said.
The Chinese embassy in Manila did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The United States, the former colonial master of the Philippines, has sought a move toward China and has appeared reluctant to confront Beijing since outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte took power in 2016.
But in the face of mounting domestic pressure to take a tougher stance, Duterte insisted that Philippine sovereignty over water is not negotiable.
Cabinet Secretary Carlo Nograles said on Thursday: “We will continue to assert our sovereignty … over our territory.”
In July, Duterte went back on the decision to end a major military pact with the United States — the Visiting Forces Agreement — during a visit by Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin.
In a joint statement released this week, the two countries reaffirmed “our treaty commitments”, including “obligations to respond to an armed attack in the Pacific by the United States or the Philippines.”
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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