The action \u201cescalates regional tensions, infringes upon freedom of navigation in the\u00a0South China Sea\u00a0as guaranteed under international law and undermines the rules-based international order<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He warned that any \u201carmed attack on Philippine public vessels\u201d would invoke the 1951 US-Philippines treaty in which Washington is obliged to defend its ally.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Philippines said the Chinese coastguard on Tuesday\u00a0fired a water cannon against boats\u00a0delivering supplies to Filipino marines, forcing them to halt their mission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The incident came as the Filipinos were traveling to Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratly Islands, one of a series of hotly contested areas in the South China Sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n China defended its actions, saying that it acted to \u201csafeguard China\u2019s sovereignty\u201d as the Filipinos had not been in contact with their movements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n China claims almost all of the sea, through which trillions of dollars in trade pass annually, with competing claims from Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The contested waters also have valuable fishing grounds and are believed to sit atop vast oil and gas deposits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beijing has ignored a 2016 ruling by The Hague-based\u00a0Permanent Court of Arbitration\u00a0that its historical claim over most of the sea to be without basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n China controls several reefs in the South China Sea including Scarborough Shoal \u2013 which Beijing seized from Manila in 2012 \u2013 and is just 240km west of the main Philippine island of Luzon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It has asserted its stance by building up small shoals and reefs into military bases with airstrips and port facilities.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n After China occupied Mischief Reef in the mid-1990s, the Philippines marooned a derelict navy vessel atop the nearby Second Thomas Shoal to assert Manila\u2019s territorial claim, where members of the Philippine Marines are based.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Outgoing President\u00a0Rodrigo Duterte\u00a0has sought to pivot away from the US, the Philippines\u2019 former colonial master, towards China since taking power in 2016 and has appeared reluctant to confront Beijing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But facing growing domestic pressure to take a harder line, Duterte has insisted Philippine sovereignty over the waters is not negotiable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles said on Thursday \u201cWe will continue to assert our sovereignty \u2026 over our territory<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In July, Duterte walked back on a decision to axe the 70-year-old military deal \u2013 the\u00a0Visiting Forces Agreement\u00a0\u2013 with the US during a visit by Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n NMT<\/a> as reported by AFP<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Washington, Nov 20 — The United States accused China of an escalation against the\u00a0Philippines\u00a0and warned…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12409,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/thediplomat_2016-06-20_18-32-13.jpg",600,368,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/thediplomat_2016-06-20_18-32-13-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/thediplomat_2016-06-20_18-32-13-300x184.jpg",300,184,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/thediplomat_2016-06-20_18-32-13.jpg",600,368,false],"large":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/thediplomat_2016-06-20_18-32-13.jpg",600,368,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/thediplomat_2016-06-20_18-32-13.jpg",600,368,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/thediplomat_2016-06-20_18-32-13.jpg",600,368,false],"newsium-slider-full":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/thediplomat_2016-06-20_18-32-13.jpg",600,368,false],"newsium-featured":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/thediplomat_2016-06-20_18-32-13.jpg",600,368,false],"newsium-medium":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/thediplomat_2016-06-20_18-32-13.jpg",600,368,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Editor"]},"category_info":"Asia<\/a>","tag_info":"Asia","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12408"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12410,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12408\/revisions\/12410"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"philippines\"](\"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/thediplomat_2016-06-20_18-32-13.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n