A Philippine security official says that China is pushing
the country "to the wall" with growing aggression in the disputed
South China Sea, warning that "all options are on the table" for
Manila's response, including new international lawsuits.
A large Chinese coast guard ship patrolled hotly disputed
Scarborough Shoal in recent days and then sailed toward the north-western coast
of the Philippines on Tuesday, coming as close as 77 nautical miles (143
kilometres), Philippine officials said in a news conference on Tuesday.
"The presence of the monster ship in Filipino waters …
77 nautical miles from our shoreline, is unacceptable and, therefore, it should
be withdrawn immediately by the Chinese government," Jonathan Malaya,
assistant director-general of the National Security Council, said at the news
conference alongside senior military and coast guard officials.
"We do not and will not dignify these scare tactics by
backing down. We do not waver or cower in the face of intimidation. On the
contrary, it strengthens our resolve because we know we are in the right."
A Chinese official said in Beijing that his country's
sovereignty in the South China Sea is well established and its coast guard
patrols are lawful and justified.
"We once again urge the Philippines to immediately stop
all infringement, provocation and malicious hype," Foreign Ministry
spokesperson Guo Jiakun said.
The Chinese government has repeatedly accused the
Philippines and other rival claimant states including Vietnam and Malaysia of
encroaching on what it says are "undisputed" Chinese territorial
waters.
Philippines working
with Asian nations on security deals
Two Philippine coast guard ships, backed by a small
surveillance aircraft, repeatedly ordered the 165-meter Chinese coast guard
ship to withdraw from the Philippines' exclusive economic zone, a 200-nautical
mile (370-kilometre) stretch of water, Philippine coast guard Commodore Jay
Tarriela said.
"What we're doing there is, hour-by-hour and
day-to-day, [we're] challenging the illegal presence of the Chinese coast guard
for the international community to know that we're not going to allow China to
normalise the illegal deployment," Mr Tarriela said.
Under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who took office in
mid-2022, the Philippines has aggressively defended its territorial interests
in the South China Sea, a key global trading route.
That has brought Philippine forces into frequent
confrontation with China's coast guard, navy and suspected militia boats and
sparked fears that a bigger armed conflict could draw in the United States, the
Philippines' longtime treaty ally and China's regional rival.
The lopsided conflict has forced the Philippines to seek
security arrangements with other Asian and Western countries, including Japan,
with which it signed a key agreement last July which would allow their forces
to hold joint combat training.
The pact, which must be ratified by officials of both countries
before it takes effect, was the first such agreement to be forged by Japan in
Asia.
China surrounded Scarborough Shoal with its coast guard and
other ships after a tense territorial stand-off with the Philippines in 2012.
The Philippines responded by bringing its disputes with
China to international arbitration in 2013 and largely won three years later
when an arbitration panel in The Hague invalidated China's expansive claims in
the busy sea passage under the 1982 United Convention on the Law of the Sea.
China has rejected the 2016 arbitration ruling and continues
to openly defy it.
"Will this lead to another case?" Mr Malaya said.
"All options are on the table because the closer the
monster ship is in Philippine waters, the more it makes tensions high and the
more that the Philippine government contemplates things it was not
contemplating before."
China has warned the Philippines from pursuing another legal
case in an international forum after the arbitration, preferring bilateral
negotiations, which give Beijing an advantage because of its size and clout, a
senior Philippine official has said on condition of anonymity because of a lack
of authority to discuss such sensitive issues publicly.
The two countries have also been discussing their territorial conflicts under a bilateral consultation mechanism to avoid an escalation of the disputes. The next round of talks will be hosted by China, the official said.
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