The foreign ministers of the Philippines and China yesterday exchanged “strong” protests over an encounter between the two countries’ vessels at a disputed shoal in the South China Sea earlier this week.
In a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the sidelines of the 59th ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Manila, Foreign Secretary Ma. Theresa Lazaro reiterated the protest over China Coast Guard (CCG)’s “unacceptable actions against Filipino personnel,” she said in a post on X.
The incident in question took place on Monday at Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratly Islands, during a confrontation between Philippine marines and personnel from the CCG. The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) claimed that a Philippine marine sustained a significant head injury after being struck with a baton by a CCG sailor.
According to the AFP, the confrontation took place after a CCG boat carrying eight personnel came within close range of the BRP Sierra Madre, a grounded Philippine warship that serves as the Philippines’ outpost on the shoal. Two Philippine dinghies then attempted “calmly and non-confrontationally” to drive it away, and a melee ensued. China disputed this claim, asserting that the Philippines side was to blame for instigating the incident and ramming the CCG boat.
During her meeting with Wang, Lazaro “conveyed the Philippines’s consistent and principled positions on the South China Sea, and raised concerns over actions that have infringed on the maritime rights and entitlements, including incidents affecting the safety of Filipino personnel,” the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said in a statement. “The Philippines emphasized the need to exercise restraint, avoid actions that increase tensions, and resolve disputes peacefully in accordance with international law.”
Lazaro also registered her protest over a recent AI-generated video that depicted the Philippines as a karaoke-singing monkey. The 58-second video, which was posted online by the state-controlled China Daily on July 10, was “deeply offensive, distressing, and unacceptable,” the DFA paraphrased her as saying.
The video shows a timid monkey in Filipino traditional dress being forced by two faceless figures representing the United States and Japan to parrot the arbitral award that was handed down by a tribunal in The Hague in 2016.
While Chinese Ambassador Jing Quan attempted to distance his government from the China Daily video, Lazaro “emphasized that disagreements over legal and political issues do not justify resorting to disturbing imagery, drawing a firm line at the depiction of Filipinos as monkeys,” the DFA stated.
China’s Foreign Ministry later said that Wang registered his own “strong protest” over the incident at Second Thomas Shoal and urged the Philippines “to immediately stop provocative actions on maritime issues and make concrete efforts to stabilize bilateral relations,” Chinese state media reported.
Stating that the bilateral relationships was at a “crossroad,” Wang said that the Philippines needed to make a “correct and rational” choice regarding its future direction. He added that “allowing external forces to meddle in regional affairs and deliberately hyping up maritime disputes will only reduce the Philippines to a pawn manipulated by others.”
The incident near Second Thomas Shoal overshadowed this week’s ASEAN-related meetings in Manila. During a meeting with his Quad partners from the U.S, Australia, and India, Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi voiced strong opposition to any attempts to change the status quo by force in the region, including in the South China Sea. Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong concurred, adding that “We have real concerns about behavior that is destabilizing and risky.”
Canada’s Foreign Minister Anita Anand also described the incident near Second Thomas Shoal as “troubling,” adding, “We do not agree with intimidation as a means of addressing disputes.”
U.S. Secretary of State Rubio raised the issue in his own sideline meeting with Wang yesterday, stating that the incident was “escalatory” and “benefited no one.” He also reminded Wang that Washington had a defense treaty with Manila “and intends to abide by it.”
Rubio separately met with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., during which they “underscored the importance of upholding freedoms of navigation and overflight in the South China Sea,” the State Department said in its official readout. They also noted the recent 10th anniversary of Arbitral Award in the South China Sea, which ruled that China’s expansive maritime claims in the South China Sea had no basis under international law.
In spite of the recent incidents, Lazaro and Wang expressed their “continued willingness” to conclude negotiations on the long-expected ASEAN-China Code of Conduct for the South China Sea, according to the Philippine DFA. They also “underscored the importance of maintaining open channels of communication, enhancing mutual understanding, and strengthening confidence-building measures.”
The Code is intended to reduce the risk of conflict in the South China Sea, where China’s expansive “nine-dash line” maritime claim clashes with those of four ASEAN member states: Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Brunei. It has been under negotiation for two decades, and pledges of its speedy completion are a hardy perennial of ASEAN-China meetings.
On Tuesday, ASEAN’s foreign ministers welcomed the progress in negotiations for the Code, and Malaysian Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan later told reporters that it could be finalized at the 49th ASEAN Summit in Manila in November. Given the current state of tension between China and the Philippines, and the long line of lapsed deadlines, this very much remains to be seen.
