Philippines condemns China’s Coast Guard over forceful maritime provocation

By Thai Newsroom Reporters

THE PHILIPPINES yesterday (Jan.22) condemned China’s Coast Guard for repeating its maritime provocation by literally forcing Philippine fishermen to keep out of a disputed reef area in the South China Sea earlier this month.

A spokesperson of the Philippines’ National Security Council denounced the provocative event in which the Chinese Coast Guard had forced the local fishermen to return sea shells which they had caught off Scarborough Shoal and expelled them from the disputed area.

Though no violence was reported to the appalled fishermen, such maritime provocations on the part of the Chinese forces only aggravated the sustained tension between Manila and Beijing in vicinity of Scarborough Shoal and other coral reefs and atolls around Spratly Islands, according to the NSC spokesperson.

Chinese military personnel, equipment and installations have been built on a number of submerged reefs in the disputed South China Sea since the last several years whilst dredging and landfill work is currently carried out on those China-occupied atolls.

The Philippines and China are amongst several countries laying mutually contradictory claims of territorial integrity over the South China Sea’s reefs and atolls apart from Taiwan, Malaysia, Brunei, and Vietnam.

Tensions in the South China Sea have escalated over the past months, highlighted by China’s Coast Guard ships firing high-pressure water cannons at Philippine Coast Guard vessels off Scarborough Shoal.

Earlier this month, maritime patrols jointly conducted by the United States’ Carrier Strike Group 1, Japan’s Maritime Self-Defence Force, South Korean and Philippine navies in the South China Sea had seen Chinese naval ships trailing along in a distance but no hostile engagements were reported.

The Philippines is not only looking for military support from the US but Germany and other European countries to cope with China’s mounting naval threats to the island republic’s territorial sovereignty over an exclusive economic zone in the resources-rich South China Sea. Invariably viewed as Washington’s treaty allies in the Indo-Pacific region are Singapore and Manila.

CAPTIONS:

Top: A Philippine Coast Guard ship tows a Filipino resupply vessel following damages due to a water cannon from a Chinese Coast Guard ship as it was heading towards the disputed Second Thomas Shoal, in the South China Sea on Dec. 10, 2023. File photo: Philippine Coast Guard/Handout via Reuters and published by CNA

Front Page: Philippine Coast Guard personnel are seen during a resupply mission for Filipino troops stationed on a grounded warship in the South China Sea on Oct. 4, 2023. File photo: Reuters/Adrian Portugal and published by CNA

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