Philippines accuses China of using knife in major escalation in South China Sea

Hong Kong
CNN
—

The Philippines accused China’s coast guard of launching a “brutal attack” using knifes during a clash in the South China Sea earlier this week, a major escalation in a long-running dispute that threatens to draw the United States into a new global conflict.

Footage released by the Philippine military on Thursday showed Chinese coast guard personnel brandishing axes and other bladed and sharp tools at Philippine soldiers and slashing a rubber dinghy in what Manila called a “brazen act of aggression.”

The Philippines and China have blamed each other for a clash on Monday near Second Thomas Reef in the Spratly Islands, during a mission to resupply its troops stationed on a stranded World War II-era warship that the Philippines claims as its own.

The incident is the latest in a series of increasingly tense standoffs in the resource-rich and strategically important waterway.

But the latest footage marks a new turning point in long-simmering tensions, with China adopting new, much more overtly aggressive tactics in what analysts say appears to be a calculated test of how the Philippines and its key defense ally, the United States, will respond.

China’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday that “law enforcement measures” taken by its coast guard over the collision were “professional and restrained” and that “no direct action was taken against any Filipino nationals.”

Collin Koh, a research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said it was unprecedented for Chinese maritime law enforcement to board a Philippine navy vessel.

“They may be rubber boats, but the fact remains that they are Philippine naval vessels and according to international law they enjoy what is called sovereign immunity,” Co said. “This is very dangerous because it could even be interpreted as an act of war.”

Senior Philippine military officials said at a press conference on Wednesday that Chinese coast guard personnel “illegally boarded” a Philippine rubber boat, “looted” seven disassembled rifles stored in a gun case, “destroyed” the outboard motor, communication and navigation equipment and seized the Filipino personnel’s mobile phones.

“They deliberately used knives and other sharp tools to poke holes in our rubber boat,” said Gen. Alfonso Torres Jr., commander of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Western Command.

Torres said a Philippine Navy soldier aboard a rubber boat lost his right thumb after being hit by the Chinese coast guard.

The Chinese coast guard also used tear gas, “blinding” strobe lights and sounded continuous sirens, according to AFP.

“Only pirates would do something like this. Only pirates would board a ship, steal and destroy it, its equipment and possessions,” Philippine armed forces chief of staff Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. said in a statement.

“The China Coast Guard officers had knives, our officers fought with their bare hands, and that’s the point. We were outnumbered, their weapons were unexpected, but our officers fought with everything they had,” Bronner added.

China’s Foreign Ministry, at a regular press conference on Thursday, was asked to comment on the Philippines’ claims that its ships were damaged by Chinese coast guard personnel using knives and firing tear gas.

Lin Jian did not address those allegations, instead restating Beijing’s claims to Second Thomas Reef, known in China as Ren’ai Reef.

“The Philippine operation was not intended to transport humanitarian aid. The Philippine vessels were carrying construction materials as well as smuggled weapons. They also deliberately rammed Chinese vessels and splashed water and threw objects at Chinese law enforcement officers,” Lin said. “These actions have clearly exacerbated maritime tensions and seriously threatened the safety of Chinese nationals and vessels.”

What happens in the South China Sea has important implications for the United States, which has a decades-old mutual defense treaty with the Philippines.

The clash was the first between the two countries since a new law came into force in China on Saturday giving the country’s coast guard the power to seize foreign ships and detain crew suspected of trespassing for up to 60 days without trial.

It also comes just weeks after Philippine President Ferdinand Bongbong Marcos Jr. warned that the deaths of Filipinos at the hands of a foreign power in the waterway would be “very close to an act of war.”

Marcos has sought closer ties with the United States, which has repeatedly stressed its “firm commitment” to the 1951 U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty, which provides for each side to defend the other if either is attacked by a third party.

“The United States stands with our ally the Philippines and condemns China’s escalation and irresponsible behavior,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said on Monday.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a phone call with his Philippine counterpart Enrique A. Manalo on Wednesday that China’s actions “undermine regional peace and stability and underscore the United States’ firm commitment to the Philippines under our Mutual Defense Treaty.”

Derek Grossman, a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation, a U.S. think tank, said the video released by the Philippines “clearly shows that China has attacked Philippine military assets” and that it would trigger mutual defense obligations under the U.S.-Manila defense pact.

“But realistically, the Philippines itself would have to make the move before the United States intervenes militarily,” he said.

China claims “indisputable sovereignty” over nearly all of the South China Sea and most of the islands and sandbars within it, including many features hundreds of miles from the Chinese mainland. Several governments, including Manila, have competing claims.

In 2016, the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled in favor of the Philippines in a landmark maritime dispute, concluding that China had no legal basis to claim historic rights over much of the South China Sea.

But Beijing has ignored the ruling and instead stepped up its maritime claims, with China Coast Guard vessels reinforced by militia boats being involved in several collisions in the past year, damaging Philippine ships and injuring Philippine sailors with water cannon fire.

The Chinese coast guard’s decision to use blades in the recent clashes in the South China Sea has been compared to clashes between China and India on their disputed border in the Himalayas where soldiers from both sides fought violently with sticks, stones and hands.

Co said the Filipino personnel aboard the rubber boat were an elite force from the Navy Special Warfare Command.

“They are trained for combat. They are simply exercising restraint by not retaliating against the Chinese,” he said. “They probably have instructions from their superiors not to retaliate against the Chinese under any circumstances and not escalate the situation.”

Footage released by the Philippine military showed another shocking development: the collision occurred right next to the BRP Sierra Madre, a rusting, U.S.-built Philippine Navy landing craft that was deliberately run aground in 1999, flying the Philippine flag, to assert the Philippines’ claim to Second Thomas Shoal.

Gao noted that this is the closest the Chinese Coast Guard has come to the BRP Sierra Madre.

“Under normal rules of engagement, the garrison would have fired warning shots,” he said. “The reason this incident did not escalate further is because the Philippines exercised utmost restraint. That’s a simple fact.”

Ko said China was trying to test both Manila and Washington “to see exactly where the red lines are that should not be crossed.”

“They wanted to know to what extent the United States was willing to make security commitments to the Philippines. Of course, I don’t think Beijing would be stupid enough not to consider the possibility that such a move could make things worse, but in the end, I think it was a risk they decided to take.”