MANILA: The Philippines said on Monday (Mar 25) it had summoned a Chinese envoy over “aggressive actions” by the China Coast Guard and other vessels near a reef off the Southeast Asian country’s coast.
Beijing and Manila have a long history of maritime territorial disputes in the South China Sea and there have been repeated confrontations between their vessels near disputed reefs in recent months.
The latest incident took place on Saturday near Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratly Islands during a regular Philippine mission to resupply Filipino troops garrisoned on the BRP Sierra Madre, a grounded navy ship.
The Philippines said the China Coast Guard blocked its supply vessel and damaged it with water cannon, injuring three soldiers.
The China Coast Guard has defended its actions, describing them as “lawful regulation, interception and expulsion” of a foreign vessel that “tried to forcefully intrude” into Chinese waters.
Second Thomas Shoal is about 200km from the western Philippine island of Palawan, and more than 1,000km from China’s nearest major landmass, Hainan island.
On Monday, Manila conveyed its “strong protest against the aggressive actions undertaken by the China Coast Guard and Chinese Maritime Militia against the rotation and resupply mission undertaken by the Philippines in Ayungin Shoal,” the Department of Foreign Affairs said, using the Filipino name for Second Thomas Shoal.
It said the Philippine embassy in Beijing also lodged a similar protest with the Chinese foreign ministry.
“In these demarches, the Philippines stressed, among others, that China has no right to be in Ayungin Shoal,” the foreign affairs department said.
“The Philippines demands that Chinese vessels leave the vicinity of Ayungin Shoal and the Philippine exclusive economic zone immediately.”
It is the same location where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannon and collided with Filipino vessels in similar stand-offs in recent months.
A spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Manila did not immediately comment on the summoning of its envoy.
