Videos Show China's Water Cannon Attacks on US Ally

A supply convoy to a Philippine-held reef in the South China Sea came under heavy water cannon fire as the Chinese coast guard moved to intercept.

One of the two participating Philippine supply boats was forced to turn back after sustaining damage from the blasts, which also injured several crew members, while the other boat managed to continue to its destination, Manila said.

It was the latest in a series of incidents over the past year that has raised the specter of a power conflict. The Philippines maintains a Mutual Defense Treaty with the United States—a pact President Joe Biden has called "ironclad."

The supply boats were on their way to deliver fresh troops and supplies to the BRP Sierra Madre, an 80-year-old warship run aground at the Second Thomas Shoal to stake Manila's claim amid Chinese expansion into the resource-rich sea.

Beijing maintains that the grounding of the ship, which houses a group of Philippine marines, is illegal, and seeks to prevent shipments of cargo that could be used to reinforce the dilapidated vessel.

Chinese forces "harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers in another attempt to illegally impede or obstruct a routine resupply and rotation mission" to the Sierra Madre, a Philippine military task force wrote in a statement.

The Chinese embassy in the Philippines said in a statement later the same day it had lodged representations with its host government over the "illegal trespassing" at Second Thomas Shoal.

The Philippine ships encroached on the Second Thomas Shoal "without the permission of the Chinese government, attempting to deliver supplies, including construction materials to the warship that is illegally 'grounded' on the Ren'ai Jiao," the statement read, using Beijing's term for the disputed reef.

"The response of China Coast Guard was professional, restrained, reasonable and lawful," the embassy added.

China claims sovereignty over most of the resource-rich South China Sea, including features like the Second Thomas Shoal that are within neighboring claimant states' internationally recognized exclusive economic zones.

Newsweek reached out to the Chinese embassy in Manila with a request for comment.

Footage released by the Southeast Asian's country's coast guard also shows the interaction between the Philippine and Chinese coast guard. Meanwhile, the China Coast Guard release video of an apparent collision between one of its ships and a supply boat, blaming the latter for alleged unsafe conduct.

Manila said the Philippine coast guard vessel sustained "superficial structural damage," while the previously mentioned supply boat was escorted back to port after the barrage of water cannon fire.

The Philippine task force said at least four crew members on the damaged supply boat were injured by the blasts.

In addition to the official presence of the China Coast Guard, China's "maritime militia" were also tracked in the vicinity of the Second Thomas Shoal, Ray Powell, director the Stanford University-affiliated SeaLight project, wrote on social media on Tuesday morning.

Powell released imagery based on ship-tracking data that showed 10 of these paramilitary vessels were "swarming" the Philippine Coast Guard ships.

Tuesday's standoff is a dramatic reversal from last month's supply run to the Second Thomas Shoal, which went unchallenged by China.

"We are on the frontline of international efforts to preserve, defend, and uphold the rules-based international order—the same platform from which the post-war Asian economic miracles took off and upon which the continued prosperity of countries like Australia relies," Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said in Melbourne Monday at an event hosted by the Lowy Institute.

Marcos said the country remains committed to working toward an "effective and substantive code of conduct" on the South China Sea with China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Melbourne is hosting a special joint summit with ASEAN, which includes the Philippines and nine other countries in the region.

In a speech to Australia's parliament last week, Marcos swore not to cede "even one square inch" of Philippine territory, in a veiled reference to the country's feud with its powerful neighbor.