New footage released by U.S. defense treaty ally the Philippines shows the moment a Chinese water cannon shattered the windshield of a supply boat on Tuesday.
Manila said several of those onboard were injured in the shower of glass. The government-contracted vessel was part of a convoy en route to supply a Philippine military outpost in China-claimed waters.
Beijing asserts sovereignty over nearly all of the South China Sea, through which over $3 trillion worth of trade is estimated to pass each year. This includes features lying within the Philippines' exclusive economic zone (EEZ) like Second Thomas Shoal, despite an international tribunal's 2016 ruling that dismissed China's territorial claims.
Manila maintains a small group of marines at Second Thomas Shoal aboard a grounded World War II-era warship, the BRP Sierra Madre, which China maintains is illegal. Since last year, missions to transport troops and supplies to the vessel have resulted in dramatic clashes with blockading China Coast Guard and paramilitary "maritime militia" ships.
Four crew members have been treated for minor injuries sustained when their vessel's windshield shattered on Tuesday, the Philippine armed forces' task force responsible for the area said.
One of the two supply boats managed to reach its destination, while the damaged one returned to port under escort. Separate video footage shows one of the escorting Philippine coast guard cutters colliding with a Chinese counterpart as the latter seeks to block its path.
The Armed Forces of the Philippines and Philippine embassy in Manila didn't immediately respond to written requests for comment.
"The response of China Coast Guard [sic] was professional, restrained, reasonable, and lawful," the Chinese embassy in the Philippines said in a statement later on Tuesday.
The diplomatic mission accused the Philippine crews of undertaking risky maneuvers, saying they "intruded" into Chinese waters in an effort to deliver construction materials to patch up the rusting Sierra Madre.
"The acts of the PRC's agents in the West Philippine Sea are patently illegal and downright uncivilized. We urge the PRC to be truthful and to be believable," Philippine defense chief Gilbert Teodoro Jr. said in a statement Wednesday.
Responding to a Chinese coast guard claim the convoy had ignored repeated warnings from the Chinese ships, Teodoro said: "This claim is, simply put, one that no right-thinking state in the world agrees with and which many outright condemn."
"The PRC's [People's Republic of China] vain attempt to manufacture and sell this story falters in the face of real incontrovertible facts," the defense official added.
In a statement released later Tuesday, the U.S. State Department reaffirmed that Washington's Mutual Defense Treaty with Manila "extends to armed attacks on Philippine armed forces, public vessels, or aircraft--including those of its Coast Guard--anywhere in the South China Sea."
However, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., currently in Australia for an Association of Southeast Asian States summit, stopped short of calling Tuesday's incident an attack.
"I do not think that it is a time or the reason to invoke the Mutual Defense Treaty," he said. "We continue to view with great alarm this continuing dangerous maneuvers and dangerous actions that are being done against our seamen, our coast guard."
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Micah McCartney is a reporter for Newsweek based in Taipei, Taiwan. He covers U.S.-China relations, East Asian and Southeast Asian ... Read more
