China and the Philippines had already settled their tangled dispute over the abandoned ship Sierra Madre, which ran aground on a sandbar, when the coast guard searched for it on a nearby atoll. The second collision in months shows that maritime tensions are overriding agreements and revised commitments.
The incident occurred at 3:24 a.m. (local time) on Monday, near Sabina Atoll in the Spratly Islands, which are claimed by China, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam. The diplomat watched the meeting in the waters, as is customary. Beijing’s version is that two Philippine Coast Guard vessels entered its waters, ignored their stubborn warnings and rammed their ship. “They bear full responsibility for the collision,” the Interior Ministry spokesman said at his daily press conference yesterday. “We demand that the Philippine side immediately stop its violations and provocations or face the consequences.”
The Philippine version speaks of “illegal and aggressive maneuvers” by Chinese vessels as they headed toward islands controlled by the Chinese Navy. Manila regretted that the maneuvers caused “structural damage” to the two coast guard vessels. The BRP Cape Engaño shows a 13-centimeter hole in its hull, according to the boat’s captain, Jay Tarella. “This is the largest structural damage sustained after a dangerous maneuver by Chinese vessels,” he concluded.
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The schizophrenic reconstruction of events is indeed ritualistic. On the penultimate occasion, the Chinese version was exposed by Western journalists on board a Philippine ship. In this image, the footage leaked by the Chinese coast guard shows sharp and threatening turns towards their Filipino colleagues. It is humanly understandable that the Filipinos, tired of being slapped, slapped each other. Manila has expressed regret over the attacks, which involved lasers, water cannons and even a machete attack on one of its barges.
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The incident shatters the calm that has prevailed in the waters since the agreement reached weeks ago on the Sierra Madre. The provision of food and medicine to dozens of suffering Filipino sailors who inhabit the island to prevent China from taking control of the atoll has led to increasingly bloody clashes that have threatened to spiral out of control. Last week, for the first time in months, the Philippine Coast Guard visited their compatriots without Chinese interference. Experts are not counting on the agreement being permanent. Indeed, in the hours that followed, contradictions arrived. They did not define them in the same way. According to Manila, this was an understanding. According to Beijing, a temporary agreement. Manila said this understanding or agreement did not prevent it from continuing to assert its territorial claims, and Beijing warned that it would allow these missions for humanitarian reasons. They will not agree to send construction materials that could prolong the sailors’ stay indefinitely, because, remember, Manila still wants to take the ship away from there. Whether the Philippines should notify China before the missions is also up for debate.
The hottest spot right now in the South China Sea is Sabina Atoll. Beijing claims sovereignty over the Spratly Islands (Nansha in Mandarin), and by extension Sabina (Xianbin in Mandarin), about 140 kilometers west of the Philippine province of Palawan. The trigger was the discovery of exposed coral reefs. The Philippines suspected China was planning to build a structure there and increase its patrols. China did the same.
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