manilaThe Philippines said on Sunday it has deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats trying to “change the existing status quo” in the disputed South China Sea.
Beijing claims most of the strategic waterway despite a 2016 international tribunal ruling against it, and there have been frequent skirmishes or tense standoffs between Philippine and Chinese vessels.
Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam also claim the waters.
Commodore J. Tarriella, a spokesman for the Philippine Coast Guard, said Chinese patrol vessels had come as close as 60 nautical miles (111 kilometers) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon this year.
“Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to change the existing status quo,” he said in a statement.
He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area to challenge “unlawful” Chinese patrols.
He said the purpose of the deployment was to ensure that Chinese patrols “do not become routine, and this bullying behavior does not succeed”.
Tariela said the Chinese coast guard deployed three ships from its Guangdong and Hainan bases to Philippine waters between Dec. 30 and Jan. 11.
The confrontations in the South China Sea have raised concerns that they could draw the United States, Manila’s longtime security ally, into armed conflict with China.
