- The largest ship in the Chinese Coast Guard dropped anchor in Manila’s exclusive economic zone earlier this week.
- The ship anchored there for “intimidation” purposes, the Philippine Coast Guard said.
- Maritime relations between China and the Philippines have become increasingly tense in recent months.
The world’s largest coast guard vessel dropped anchor in Manila’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the South China Sea earlier this week, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) said.
Jay Tarriela, a spokesperson for the PCG, wrote on X that the authority had managed to track the movements of the “165-meter monster ship” of the Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) by “using Canadian dark vessel detection technology.”
“On July 1, the vessel departed Hainan and entered the Philippine Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) the following day,” he wrote.
The 12,000-tonne CCG 5901 was then “radioed” by the PCG, which asked it to confirm its intentions and remind them that it was operating in the EEZ, he added.
An exclusive economic zone is an area of ocean “beyond the territorial sea of a nation, within which a coastal nation exercises jurisdiction over living and non-living resources.”
Tarriela wrote Friday that the Chinese vessel had been anchored at Escoda Shoal “for more than two consecutive days” while “remaining in close proximity” to a PCG vessel. He added that the distance between the vessels was “less than 800 meters.”
Tarriela later said at a press forum that the Chinese ship’s actions were “intimidation by the Chinese coast guard.”
“We will not back down and we will not be intimidated,” he added.
Maritime conflicts between China and the Philippines are increasing
China and the Philippines have had frequent confrontations over the Second Thomas Shoal, an atoll located in the exclusive economic zone.
China claims sovereignty over the reef and most of the South China Sea, but an international tribunal ruled in 2016 that China’s claims to waters within its “nine-dash line” had no legal basis.
In 1999, the Philippines ran a ship, the BRP Sierra Madre, aground on the reef to assert its own claim to the area.
But the shoal remains what the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) has called a “dangerous flashpoint” as Chinese boats continually attempt to impede efforts to resupply the stranded vessel.
Earlier this month, the Chinese Coast Guard blocked a resupply mission using “dangerous and deliberate use of water cannons, ramming and blocking maneuvers,” according to a statement provided to US Naval Institute News by a spokesperson for the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
Chinese and Philippine officials met on Tuesday and said they wanted to “rebuild trust” to help manage maritime disputes.
But the Philippine Foreign Ministry stressed that it would “unwaveringly protect its interests and maintain its sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction” in the South China Sea.
The ICG noted in May that “relationships between the two countries in the maritime domain have never been as volatile as in the past seven months.”
