and the Philippines traded accusations after the coastguards of both countries had a confrontation around a contested shoal in the .
What China’s coast guard alleges
In the latest row, China alleged that four ships tried to enter China’s territorial which prompted Beijing’s “exercised control”, Coast Guard spokesperson Liu Dejun said in a statement.
“On December 4, Philippine Coast Guard ships… attempted to intrude into China’s territorial waters around Huangyan Island,” Dejun said, using the Chinese name for Scarborough Shoal.
The Philippine vessels “came dangerously close to regular law enforcement patrol vessels of the China Coast Guard”, Dejun said, without giving details about Biejing’s actions.
What the Philippines coast guard alleges
The Philippines said that the Chinese Coast Guard took “aggressive actions” and fired a water cannon at a government vessel while it was on patrol near the Scarborough Shoal.
The Chinese ship “fired a water cannon… aiming directly at the vessel’s navigational antennas,” Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said in a statement.
In a video, released by Manila on Wednesday, a China coast guard ship can be seen hitting the right side of a fisheries department vessel, with the crew shouting, “Collision! Collision!”
The latest confrontation between the two countries in the South China Sea come after a diplomatic row in November that involved
The area is a prime fishing patch and has remained a flashpoint between the two countries since 2012 when China seized it from the Philippines.
The shoal is located some 240 kilometers (150 miles) west of the Philippines’ main island of Luzon and nearly 900 kilometers from the nearest major Chinese land mass of Hainan province.
China claims nearly the , despite a 2016 ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague rejecting these claims.
mfi/kb (AFP, Reuters)
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