Philippines and China blame each other for collision between coast guard ships in disputed waters

Philippines It is China This Tuesday, they were accused of a new collision between coast guard vessels from the two countries in a disputed area of ​​the sea ​​of south of chinaamid increased bilateral tension over the sovereignty of territories in these strategic waters.

The Director of Personnel of the Philippine Coast Guard, Jay Tarrielaaccused the Chinese ships of carrying out “dangerous maneuvers” and “reckless and illegal actions” that resulted in the incident, as indicated in X.

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According to their version, the accident occurred when three coast guard ships Filipinos were deployed on Tuesday morning to support the supply of the Philippine armed forces.

“In fully operationalO Philippine Coast Guard They faced dangerous maneuvers and blockade from the Chinese coast guard and Chinese maritime militia. His reckless and illegal actions caused a collision between the ship MHRRV-4407 it’s him chinese coast guard 21555″, states.

Tarrielawhich accompanies the comment with some videos and a photograph from its coast guard at the time of the incident, in which the sides of the two ships are seen colliding for a few seconds, added that the collision caused “minor damage to the Philippine ship.” .

In turn, the Coast Guard China assured today that its ships took measures against “illegal intrusion”of Philippine vessels in waters adjacent to the atoll According to Thomas (known in Philippines as Ayungin is at China as Ren’ai), from the archipelago Spratabout which Beijing It is Manila They have territorial claims.

Later, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning explained at a press conference that China transmitted a “strong protest” for Manila for the event, while also defending the behavior of the Chinese coast guard.

For your part, Mary Kay Carlsonambassador in Manila in U.S (a country that maintains a mutual defense treaty with the Philippines), stated that his country “supports the Philippines and the defenders of international law, in support of a Indo-Pacific free and open”, as highlighted in X.

This area accumulates incidents between ships from both countries and some collisions like the current one. The last incident occurred at the end of February, when Manila accused the chinese coast guard in block passing one of their boats while transporting fuel to fishermen near the atoll.

The Philippines also denounced a floating barrier installed by Beijing to block their ships around Scarborough Reef (Bass Masinloc to the Philippines, Huangyan Dao for China).

Although the Permanent Court of Arbitration of Have it gave reason to Philippines in its claim to sovereignty in this area in 2016, Beijing does not recognize the prize and claims almost in its entirety the sea of south of chinarich in resources and fundamental for the transit of world trade, as “historical reasons”, also disputing territories with Malaysia, Vietnam, Taiwan and Brunei.

A report last week from the Initiative for Maritime Transparencythirsty washingtonhighlighted that the number of Chinese maritime militia ships, which according to experts includes everything from fishing boats to former members of the Army, increased by 35% year-on-year in 2023 in these waters.

The new incident occurs while China celebrates the annual session of the National People’s Assembly (ANP, Legislative), its most important political event, and in which it announced today that it will increase Defense spending by 7.2% this year.

Source: Elcomercio

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I am Jack Morton and I work in 24 News Recorder. I mostly cover world news and I have also authored 24 news recorder. I find this work highly interesting and it allows me to keep up with current events happening around the world.