China and the Philippines traded new accusations of deliberately ramming into each other’s coast guard vessels near a disputed atoll in the South China Sea where the two countries are engaged in an escalating standoff.
The confrontation near the atoll, Sabina Shoal, on Saturday came after multiple others in the area between the two countries in the past two weeks. It also comes days after the Biden administration’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, held talks with senior Chinese leaders in Beijing and raised America’s defense treaty with the Philippines.
The U.S. State Department said this weekend that it stood with its “ally” and condemned China for “deliberately” colliding with a Philippine Coast Guard vessel.
“This is the latest in a series of dangerous and escalatory actions by the P.R.C.,” a State Department spokesman, Matthew Miller, said in the statement, referring to the People’s Republic of China. “The P.R.C.’s unlawful claims of ‘territorial sovereignty’ over ocean areas where no land territory exists, and its increasingly aggressive actions to enforce them, threaten the freedoms of navigation and overflight of all nations.”
Mr. Miller reaffirmed the 1951 United States-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty, which requires America to come to the defense of the Philippines if it comes under armed attack.
Sabina Shoal, referred to as Xianbin Jiao by China and as Escoda Shoal by the Philippines, is the latest flashpoint in a continuing dispute between Beijing and Manila over territory in the South China Sea. In June, a Filipino sailor lost a thumb after a collision with a Chinese Coast Guard ship at the nearby Second Thomas Shoal, where Beijing has tried to thwart the resupply of a Philippine military outpost.
China maintains vast claims to the waters in the South China Sea, which contains some of the world’s richest fisheries, as well as shipping lanes that carry about a third of global ocean trade. Experts also believe that the area has large deposits of oil and natural gas.
An international tribunal ruled in 2016 that China’s claims in the sea had no legal basis. It noted that features such as Second Thomas Shoal were within the Philippines’s 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone.
China’s claims in the South China Sea have rankled other countries in the region such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam. But those disputes have been less intense because they do not involve the United States, and because those countries have not challenged China’s claims as vociferously as the Philippines has under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., analysts said.
Video of the encounter on Saturday released by the Philippine Coast Guard purports to show a Chinese Coast Guard ship ramming the Teresa Magbanua three times.
“China’s latest actions are uncalled-for, as the Philippine vessel was engaged in a peaceful and lawful patrol within its own maritime jurisdiction,” the Philippine Maritime Council said in a statement. “The Philippines condemns this unprovoked aggression and remains steadfast in upholding its sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction.”
The 97-meter Teresa Magbanua, one of the country’s biggest coast guard ships, has been anchored at Sabina Shoal since April. The atoll is inside the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines, 75 nautical miles from the western province of Palawan and more than 600 nautical miles from China.
China released its own video of the collision, saying that it showed the Philippine ship sailing into the path of the Chinese Coast Guard vessel.
“The Philippine ship deliberately rammed into the Chinese ship,” said Liu Dejun, a spokesman for the Chinese Coast Guard, adding that it happened “in an unprofessional and dangerous manner, causing a collision for which the Philippines bears full responsibility.”
“China once again urges the Philippines to face reality, abandon illusions, and immediately withdraw their illegal ship, as this is the only correct path forward,” he added.
The encounter on Saturday near Sabina Shoal comes after one on Aug. 25 when Chinese Coast Guard ships fired water cannons at Philippine fisheries vessels, and one on Aug. 19 when coast guard ships from the Philippines and China collided.
