Philippine Secretary of Defense Delfin Lorenzana yesterday accused the Chinese coast guard of “intimidation and harassment” after Philippine navy personnel were filmed and photographed unloading goods in the disputed South China Sea.
Tensions over the resource-rich waters have spiked in the past week after Chinese coast guard vessels fired water cannons at Philippine boats delivering supplies to marines at Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the disputed Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島).
Manila expressed outrage over the attack, which forced the Philippine boats to abort their mission.
Beijing said the vessels had entered its waters without permission.
China claims almost all of the waterway, through which trillions of dollars in trade passes annually, with competing claims from Taiwan, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam.
Beijing has ignored a 2016 ruling by The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration that its historical claim is without basis.
Two civilian boats manned by Philippine navy personnel yesterday made another attempt to reach the shoal and arrived “without any untoward incident,” Lorenzana said.
However, three people in a rubber boat deployed by a nearby Chinese coast guard vessel took photographs and videos as “personnel and cargo” were unloaded from the vessels, he said.
“I have communicated to the Chinese ambassador that we consider these acts as a form of intimidation and harassment,” he added.
The Chinese embassy in Manila did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion