The Philippines said a Chinese vessel rammed three of its fishing boats last week in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea), in the latest sign of tensions over disputed claims to rich fishing grounds in the area.
The Philippines filed a formal protest to the Chinese embassy in Manila on Wednesday over the incident, and lodged a separate complaint over illegal fishing after at least two dozen Chinese boats were seen collecting endangered giant clams in the Scarborough Shoal on January 22, the Department of Foreign Affairs said.
“The Philippines strongly protested China’s continuing actions to harass and prevent Filipino fishermen from legitimately pursuing their livelihood in that area,” it said in a statement, referring to the January 29 incident in which a Chinese coast guard vessel rammed three Philippine fishing boats.
The incident is the latest in the territorial dispute between the Philippines and China over the resource-rich shoals in the South China Sea, located about 150 miles from the Philippine island of Luzon. China claims most of the sea and in recent years has become more aggressive in asserting its claims. In January of last year Chinese ships used water canons to drive Filipino fishermen out of the Scarborough Shoal, which the Chinese call Huangyan island.
China’s claim to more than 90 percent of the South China Sea is based on a 1947 map, with a more recent version following a line of nine dashes shaped like a cow’s tongue, looping down to a point about 1,800 kilometers (about 1,120 miles) south from the coast of Hainan island. The area overlaps claims from Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei Darussalam and Taiwan.
Huangyan, which is about 500 miles from China’s Hainan island, is an “integral part of Chinese territory,” Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hong Lei said on Thursday in Beijing.
“On January 29th multiple Philippines fishing boats lingered illegally in the shallow waters of Huangyan island disobeying the instruction of the Chinese side.
The Chinese coast guard sent a dinghy to ask the Philippine fishing boats to leave and some of those bumped slightly into each other.”
Chinese ships last year clashed with Vietnamese vessels after China towed an oil-exploration rig into contested waters near the Paracel Islands. The conflict, which led to the sinking of a Vietnamese fishing boat, triggered anti-Chinese riots in Vietnam.
“We’ve unfortunately had to have dialogue about this in the past, given, as you know, there’s a history here,” US State Department Spokesman Jen Psaki said in Washington on Wednesday, when asked about the latest incident.
Harvesting giant clams, which are endangered species, destroys corals and reefs, and violates three international conventions, the Philippines’ foreign affairs department said.
Bloomberg News