Videos Show Chinese Ships Firing Water Cannon, Ramming US Ally's Boats

Footage has emerged of China's coast guard deploying a water cannon against a Philippine supply mission on Sunday in a contested part of the South China Sea, with each side blaming the other for a collision that took place during the standoff.

Videos released by the Philippine Coast Guard showed a convoy en route to Second Thomas Shoal, part of the disputed Spratly Islands archipelago, over which China claims sovereignty, as it does with most of the energy-rich sea.

Second Thomas Shoal is uninhabited but for a small contingent of Philippine marines stationed on the BRP Sierra Madre, a rusting warship Manila ran aground there in 1999 to stake its claim to the low-tide atoll, which lies within the country's exclusive economic zone.

Regular missions to resupply the outpost have in recent months drawn increasingly stronger responses from China's maritime forces, which have used water cannon attacks and blocking maneuvers aimed at preventing the Philippines' operations.

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Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr., the chief of staff to the Philippines' armed forces, accompanied the latest supply mission to raise morale and deliver a message of encouragement to front-line troops.

Brawner told The Associated Press on Monday that he was aboard one of the vessels when it was doused by a Chinese water cannon, in a move the senior official called "pure aggression."

"I witnessed how many times the big Chinese coast guard and militia ships cut our path. They water-cannoned us, then bumped us. It's angering," he said.

"China Coast Guard and Chinese maritime militia vessels harassed, blocked and executed dangerous maneuvers on Philippine civilian supply vessels, in another attempt to illegally impede or obstruct a routine resupply and rotation mission to BRP Sierra Madre at Ayungin Shoal [Second Thomas Shoal]," the National Task Force of the West Philippine Sea, which includes representatives from several government agencies, said in a statement on Sunday.

One Chinese coast guard vessel used its water cannon on the supply convoy, damaging the mast of the patrol boat BRP Cabra and seriously damaging the engines of the supply boat M/L Kalavaan, the Philippine statement said. The disabled boat was towed back to the island province of Palawan.

Another small supply boat bumped against the larger Chinese coast guard ship during an attempt to block it from carrying out its mission. However, it was able to continue on to Second Thomas Shoal.

Chinese state broadcaster CCTV carried a China Coast Guard statement Sunday that alleged the Philippine boats had "illegally entered" Chinese waters near Ren'ai Jiao, Beijing's name for Second Thomas Shoal.

The supply boat ignored repeated warnings and rammed the Chinese coast guard boat, according to the statement, which said "the responsibility lies entirely with the Philippine side."

China's Foreign Ministry repeated the coast guard statement at a regular press conference in Beijing on Monday.

Ray Powell, director of the Stanford University-affiliated SeaLight project, said on social media that multiple Chinese coast guard, maritime militia and navy ships in the waters near Second Thomas Shoal before the supply run began suggested Beijing had "advanced knowledge" of the mission.

The revelation could point to Beijing's increased use of air and space reconnaissance assets to preempt Manila's moves.

In a separate and earlier incident on Saturday, boats from the Philippines' fisheries bureau were targeted by the water cannons of at least two Chinese coast guard vessels while on a mission to deliver supplies to fishermen near another contested feature: Scarborough Shoal.

China seized de facto control of the feature in 2012 and has ramped up its presence in nearby waters. It continues to block Philippine boats from accessing traditional fishing grounds there, in violation of international maritime law, and attempted to place a barrier around the area over the weekend.

Manila summoned China's ambassador over the weekend's clashes and was mulling expelling him, the Philippines' foreign affairs department spokesperson said on Monday.

The United States, which counts the Philippines as its oldest ally in Asia, has reaffirmed its commitment to intervene militarily should Manila's public vessels come under an armed attack, including in the South China Sea.

The U.S. State Department on Sunday said China had "interfered in lawful Philippine maritime operations and in Philippine vessels' exercise of high seas freedom of navigation."

Chinese forces exhibited a "reckless disregard for the safety and livelihood of Filipinos," the department said in the eighth such statement since June 2022.

In separate posts on X (formerly Twitter) over the weekend, MaryKay Carlson, the top U.S. envoy in Manila, said Washington condemned Bejing's "aggressive, illegal actions" against the Philippine vessels.

"[China's] aggression undermines regional stability in defiance of a #FreeAndOpenIndoPacific," she wrote.