China’s regular clashes with the Philippines carry the chance of a misstep or miscalculation in areas of the South China Sea claimed by both countries.
This, in turn, raises the risk of drawing the Southeast Asian country’s ally, the United States, into a conflict with the world’s largest military, in what would be the first shooting war between two nuclear powers.
Washington and Manila share a 73-year-old Mutual Defense Treaty, which American officials, including U.S. President Joe Biden, have called “ironclad” and stressed that it extends to the contested South China Sea. China claims upwards of 90 percent of the sea, including areas within the Philippines’ internationally recognized exclusive economic zone.
Last weekend, the Philippine vessel the BRP Teresa Magbanua, one of the largest cutters in the country’s coast guard fleet, was intercepted by Chinese coast guard vessels during a 9-day patrol.
The Chinese ships “performed dangerous and blocking maneuvers at sea against BRP Teresa Magbanua four times, with the CCG (Chinese coast guard) vessels crossing the bow of the PCG (Philippine coast guard) vessel twice, recklessly disregarding the ‘Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea’ once again,” Philippine coast guard spokesperson Jay Tarriela wrote in a statement on social media.
The incident recalled other recent clashes in the vicinity of the Philippine-held Second Thomas Shoal.
In the last three months of 2023, Beijing and Manila blamed each other for collisions and near-collisions that occurred during the latter’s supply missions to the atoll, where the Philippines maintains a garrison of marines aboard an 80-year-old warship that it grounded 25 years ago to stake its claim.
Manila published video footage and images showing the Chinese coast guard blasting Philippine supply boats with water cannons and apparently cutting across their bows to keep them from delivering their supplies.
Kendra Helmbrecht/U.S. Navy
Newsweek has reached out to the U.S. Department of Defense and the Chinese embassy in Washington D.C. with written requests for comment.
On Saturday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry issued a warning over the Philippines’ plan to beef up a remote military outpost in Batanes province, situated less than 130 miles from Taiwan.
The Philippines must take care not to “play with fire” and avoid being “manipulated and eventually hurt,” spokesperson Wang Wenbin cautioned.
“China should refrain from engaging in provocative rhetoric and activities if it truly wants to earn the widespread trust and respect that it is trying so hard to gain, but has, so far, been unable to do,” the Philippines’ Defense Department replied.
Also last week, the U.S. and the Philippines carried out a round of joint naval exercises “in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific,” per a press statement by the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has brought his nation closer to the U.S. in a departure from his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte. On Marcos’ watch, the country made four additional sites available to U.S. forces last year, including three within close proximity of China-claimed Taiwan, another regional hot spot.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.