China and the Philippines Trade Blame for the Latest Sea Collision

China and the Philippines traded new accusations of deliberately ramming into each other’s coast guard vessels near a disputed atoll in the South China Sea where the two countries are engaged in an escalating standoff.

The confrontation near the atoll, Sabina Shoal, on Saturday came after multiple others in the area between the two countries in the past two weeks. It also comes days after the Biden administration’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, held talks with senior Chinese leaders in Beijing and raised America’s defense treaty with the Philippines.

The U.S. State Department said this weekend that it stood with its “ally” and condemned China for “deliberately” colliding with a Philippine Coast Guard vessel.

“This is the latest in a series of dangerous and escalatory actions by the P.R.C.,” a State Department spokesman, Matthew Miller, said in the statement, referring to the People’s Republic of China. “The P.R.C.’s unlawful claims of ‘territorial sovereignty’ over ocean areas where no land territory exists, and its increasingly aggressive actions to enforce them, threaten the freedoms of navigation and overflight of all nations.”

Mr. Miller reaffirmed the 1951 United States-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty, which requires America to come to the defense of the Philippines if it comes under armed attack.

Sabina Shoal, referred to as Xianbin Jiao by China and as Escoda Shoal by the Philippines, is the latest flashpoint in a continuing dispute between Beijing and Manila over territory in the South China Sea. In June, a Filipino sailor lost a thumb after a collision with a Chinese Coast Guard ship at the nearby Second Thomas Shoal, where Beijing has tried to thwart the resupply of a Philippine military outpost.

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