Chinese and Philippine coast guard vessels collided in the disputed South China Sea and four Filipino crew members were injured in high-seas confrontations on Tuesday as South-East Asian leaders gathered for a summit in Australia that was expected to touch on Beijing's aggression at sea.
The Chinese coast guard ships and accompanying vessels blocked the Philippine coast guard and supply vessels off the disputed Second Thomas Shoal and executed dangerous maneouvres that caused two minor collisions between the Chinese ships and two of the Philippine vessels, Philippine officials said.
Officials in China gave fewer details but the country's coast guard said that the Philippine ships were illegally intruding in the area's waters and accused one of them of ramming a Chinese vessel.
Philippine officials said that the BRP Sindangan of the Philippine coast guard had minor structural damage from a collision that happened shortly after dawn. Over an hour later, another Chinese coast guard ship first blocked then collided with a supply boat the Philippine coast guard was escorting, the officials said.
The supply boat, manned by Filipino navy personnel, was later hit by water cannon blasts from two Chinese coast guard ships.
Its windshield shattered, injuring at least four Filipino crew members, according to a statement from the Philippine government task force dealing with territorial disputes.
The task force said the actions by the Chinese was "another attempt to illegally impede or obstruct a routine resupply and rotation mission."
"China's latest unprovoked acts of coercion and dangerous manoeuvres" against Philippine ships en route to deliver supplies and fresh troops to the Philippine-occupied shoal "put the lives of our people at risk and caused actual injury to Filipinos," it said.
The Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila summoned China's deputy ambassador to convey a protest against the Chinese coast guard's actions, which it said were unacceptable.
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"The Philippines demands that Chinese vessels leave the vicinity of Ayungin shoal immediately," the department said in a statement, using the Philippine name for the contested shoal.
The long-simmering territorial disputes in the South China Sea are expected to be discussed at a summit of leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Wednesday in Melbourne.
On Monday, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said in Melbourne that his administration "will do whatever it takes" to manage any threat to his country's territory but stressed that Manila would continue "to tread the path of dialogue and diplomacy" in resolving disputes with China.
