WASHINGTON, April 30 (Aljazeera) - The United States has accused China of “harassment and intimidation of Philippine vessels” and called on Beijing to end “provocative” action in the South China Sea after a recent near-collision between a Chinese vessel and a Philippine Coast Guard boat.
“We call upon Beijing to desist from its provocative and unsafe conduct,” US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement on Saturday, just two days before President Joe Biden is to host his counterpart, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, in Washington, DC.
The State Department also warned that an attack on Philippine security forces or public vessels would trigger a US response.
“The United States stands with our Philippine allies in upholding the rules-based international maritime order and reaffirms that an armed attack in the Pacific, which includes the South China Sea, on Philippine armed forces, public vessels, or aircraft, including those of the Coast Guard, would invoke US mutual defense commitments,” Miller said in the statement.
The US was responding to a near-miss between Chinese and Philippine vessels off the Spratly Islands — the latest in a long string of maritime incidents between the two countries in the restive South China Sea.
The Philippines on Friday accused China’s coast guard of “aggressive tactics” following an incident during a Philippine Coast Guard patrol close to the Philippines-held Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratly archipelago, a flashpoint for previous altercations located 105 nautical miles (195km) off its coast.
The Second Thomas Shoal is home to a small Philippine military contingent on board a rusty World War Two-era US ship that was intentionally grounded in 1999 to reinforce the Philippines’s territorial claims in the South China Sea.
Beijing claims sovereignty over almost the entire South China Sea, ignoring an international ruling that the assertion has no legal basis.
Reporters with the AFP news agency were among staff from several media outlets that witnessed the recent incident after journalists were invited to join two Philippine Coast Guard boats on a six-day patrol of the waters, visiting a dozen islands and reefs.
The Philippine vessels approached Second Thomas Shoal, known in China as Ren’ai Jiao. As one boat, the BRP Malapascua, which was carrying Filipino journalists, neared the shoal, a Chinese Coast Guard vessel more than twice its size sailed into its path. The Malapascua’s commanding officer said the Chinese ship came within 45 metres (150ft) of his boat, and only his quick actions avoided the steel-hulled vessels crashing into each other.
The Chinese foreign ministry said on Friday that the Philippine boats had “intruded” without China’s permission and called it a “premeditated and provocative action”.
Manila responded, saying that “routine patrols in our own waters can be neither premeditated or provocative” and insisting they will continue to conduct the patrols.
