Chinese Coast Guard personnel and Philippine sailors clashed with oars and sticks from small boats near the disputed Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea on Monday, with the two sides blaming the other for the incident.
The confrontation occurred near the BRP Sierra Madre, a dilapidated World War II-era ship that the Philippines grounded on the shoal in 1999 to assert its claim and now uses as a base of operations for the area.
The Chinese Coast Guard said that one of its vessels was patrolling near the shoal when two rubber dinghies were launched from the BRP Sierra Madre and “ignored our repeated and explicit warnings, rapidly approached in a dangerous manner and rammed the Chinese patrol vessel from the front.”
The Chinese Coast Guard said the Philippine sailors “first used tools such as oars and long sticks to maliciously attack Chinese law enforcement officers.”
According to the Philippine military’s account, the two dinghies were deployed to escort the Chinese vessel out of the area and that a member of the Chinese Coast Guard further escalated the situation by hitting a Philippine sailor with a “wooden baton.”
The Philippine military released a video of the Chinese vessel ramming one of the dinghies, while the South China Sea Probing Initiative, a Beijing-based think tank, released videos it said showed that the Philippine sailors started the altercation.
Encounters over the years between Chinese and Philippine vessels at Second Thomas Shoal and other disputed rocks and reefs in the South China Sea have led to collisions or sometimes involved Chinese forces firing water cannons at Philippine boats. Such incidents usually prompt the US to remind China that the US-Philippine Mutual Defense Treaty applies to attacks on Philippine vessels in the South China Sea, meaning the maritime dispute is a potential flashpoint for a war between the US and China.
“The United States reaffirms Article IV of the 1951 United States-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty extends to armed attacks on Philippine armed forces, public vessels, or aircraft – including those of its Coast Guard – anywhere in the South China Sea,” the State Department said last year after a similar incident.
In recent years, the US has increased military aid to the Philippines, ramped up its military presence in the South China Sea, including by conducting joint patrols with Philippine vessels, and has beefed up its deployments to the Philippines.
