US backs Philippine ally after China warns over vessel clash
WASHINGTON/PEIJING (Reuters) – The United States said on Monday it stood by its Filipino ally and emphasized a mutual defense agreement after ships from China and the Philippines clashed amid rising tensions in the disputed South China Sea.
Earlier, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs had urged Manila not to challenge Beijing’s efforts to “protect its regional sovereignty and maritime rights and interests” after Sunday’s incident in the Spratly Islands in which the Philippines said China used water cannons and rammed a Filipino ship.
U.S. State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott condemned China’s “ramming and water cannon” of the Philippine ship and said Washington stood by its ally “as we counter China’s dangerous actions that undermine regional stability.”
In his statement, Pigott said that Article IV of the 1951 US-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty. It reaffirmed that the clause “covers armed attacks against Philippine armed forces, public vessels, or aircraft, including Coast Guard aircraft, anywhere in the South China Sea.”
China and the Philippines have traded accusations over the conflict near Sandy Cay, a coral reef in the Spratly Islands.
The two countries have repeatedly clashed in recent years in the South China Sea, a strategic trade route that facilitates more than $3 trillion in annual shipping trade and of which China claims a large portion.
Tensions have increased recently, and Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian told a regular press conference that the Philippines must immediately stop “violations and provocations”.
The State Department said: “China’s expansive territorial and maritime claims in the South China Sea and its increasingly coercive actions to advance those claims to the detriment of its neighbors continue to undermine regional stability and flout its previous commitments to resolve disputes peacefully.”
Last year, during the former Biden administration, two top Republican U.S. senators called for a list of options developed by the Pentagon and the State Department to support the Philippines against Beijing in the South China Sea, calling for Chapter IV.
(Reporting by Antoni Slodkowski in Beijing and David Brunnstrom in Washington; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Edmund Klamann)
