China falsely accuses Philippines of escalating tensions in South China Sea

China has been ramping up pressure connected its neighbors, the Philippines, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam, attempting to unit them to cede their maritime claims successful the resource-rich South China Sea.

China uses an arbitrary bound drawn by Beijing, the alleged “nine-dash line,” to assertion the bulk of the sea, portion portraying its opponents defending their rights nether planetary instrumentality arsenic aggressors.

Tensions are peculiarly precocious betwixt China and the Philippines.

Philippines Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro said connected November 12, his state had go the unfortunate of “Chinese aggression.”

"What we spot is an expanding request by Beijing for america to concede our sovereign rights successful the area.”

Frequent reports of Chinese Coast Guard ships ramming Philippines vessels, deploying h2o cannons and military-grade lasers against them underscore Teodoro’s allegations.

Yet Beijing claims it is the Philippines, not China, who is ratcheting up tensions.

When Reuters asked Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lin Jian astir Teodoro’s allegations, Lin replied:

“Every escalation betwixt China and the Philippines — without objection — has been caused by Philippine provocations and usurpation of China’s sovereignty. Calm volition instrumentality erstwhile the Philippines stops those activities.”

That is false.

In 2016, an planetary tribunal successful The Hague rejected China’s sweeping claims to the South China Sea, ruling they violated the Philippines' rights to its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and territorial waters.

While signatory to the treaty, China has ignored that ruling and disregarded the Philippines’ rights nether the United Nations Convention connected the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which outlines the territorial waters of China’s neighbors.

On November 8, the Philippines signed measures reinforcing their internationally recognized rights implicit the country’s maritime zones.

China responded by repeating the mendacious assertion that the 2016 Hague ruling “is illegal, null and void,” and accused the United States of “inciting the Philippines to provoke unrest successful the South China Sea.”

On November 10, Beijing published geographic coordinates of consecutive baselines for the Scarborough Shoal, a maritime feature, which lies 220 kilometers eastbound of the Philippines land of Luzon.

Baselines notation to the debased h2o people on a seashore from which a territorial oversea is measured. The territorial oversea stretches 12 nautical miles from the baseline of a coastal state.

China seized the Scarborough Shoal successful 2012 and maintains a blockade there. On November 13, China held aerial and oversea combat drills astir the shoal.

China has routinely drawn alleged consecutive baselines astir maritime features successful the South China Sea, utilized to find the territorial waters of archipelagic states, similar the Philippines, who are made up of 1 oregon much groups of islands.

Experts accidental China’s strategy contravenes UNCLOS.

The U.S. Navy has agelong contended that China, recognized arsenic a coastal, not archipelagic authorities nether UNCLOS, has nary ineligible close “to found baselines astir full dispersed land groups.”

“With these baselines, China has attempted to assertion much interior waters, territorial sea, exclusive economical zone, and continental support than it is entitled to nether planetary law,” the U.S. Navy said.

Gunther Handl, a prof of planetary instrumentality astatine Tulane University, agreed, telling VOA successful 2021 that China had nary close to “claim offshore islands arsenic an archipelago.”

The Hague Tribunal further recovered that the Scarborough Shoal, similar different hide-tide features successful the Spratly Islands, are legally rocks, not islands, and “do not make entitlements to an exclusive economical portion oregon continental shelf.”

While the tribunal besides recovered that some China and the Philippines person “traditional sportfishing rights” astatine the shoal, and that “China had violated its work to respect the accepted sportfishing rights of Philippine fishermen by halting entree to the Shoal aft May 2012.”

China continues to contradict the Philippines those rights.

The Philippines has besides accused Chinese combatant jets of endangering the lives of a Philippine Air Force unit flying adjacent Scarborough Shoal.

China’s assertive actions widen beyond to different parts of the sea.

In September, a Chinese Coast Guard vas rammed a Philippines Coast Guard vessel with a 60 Minutes unit connected board which was traveling to Sabina Shoal.

Sabina Shoal is located 150 kilometers westbound of the Philippine state of Palawan, good wrong its EEZ.

China has repeatedly harassed Philippines ships operating adjacent Sabina Shoal, actions which the U.S. and its Western allies called “unsafe, unlawful, and aggressive.”

Beijing, denying the Philippines’ rights nether UNCLOS, claims Sabina Shoal and the h2o astir it are Chinese territory.

The Philippines filed 189 diplomatic protests with China from July 1, 2022, to November 12, 2024, citing Beijing’s encroachments connected the Philippines sovereignty and different aggression actions.

The Philippines has turned to the U.S., a pact ally, to enactment up its security. That has included the U.S.’s deployment of a mid-range Typhoon rocket strategy to the Philippines successful April, which acceptable disconnected alarm bells successful Beijing.

On November 14, China called deployment of the rocket strategy “a unsafe determination and a superior provocation” that could spark an “arms contention successful this region.”