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“China has been harassing Philippine resupply missions for greater than a decade and has been steadily growing the depth of their coercive techniques for no less than the final 5 years.”
Within the second half of 2023, studies of incidents between Chinese language and Philippines vessels within the South China Sea started piling up at an alarming charge. Chinese language vessels used water cannons on and collided with Philippine ships looking for to resupply an outpost on Second Thomas Shoal, which can be claimed by China. Manila reported “swarming” of different disputed reefs by Chinese language fishing vessels and maritime militia. The Philippine authorities has made clear that it expects these clashes to proceed and even escalate in 2024.
The Diplomat’s editor in chief, Shannon Tiezzi, interviewed South China Sea knowledgeable Gregory Poling on the China-Philippines disputes, the technique of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., and the function of the Philippines-U.S. alliance.
Poling, the director of the Southeast Asia Program and Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative on the Middle for Strategic and Worldwide Research (CSIS), famous that these tensions have been simmering for over a decade. “The deepening U.S.-Philippine alliance is a symptom of China’s conduct within the South China Sea, not its trigger,” Poling mentioned.
In October, November, and December there have been a spate of reported run-ins between Chinese language and Philippines vessels close to disputed maritime options within the South China Sea, together with a number of collisions. Is the frequency of such encounters new, or simply “new to us” within the sense that the Philippines didn’t beforehand publicize these incidents?
A bit of of each. The frequency and depth of those run-ins has undoubtedly elevated, and started doing so from spring 2022. However China has maintained a every day coast guard patrol round Second Thomas Shoal – the location of those incidents – since late 2013 and has often deployed maritime militia boats round it since no less than 2018. China has additionally blocked or harassed Philippine resupply missions to the troops stationed at Second Thomas Shoal on many events beneath each the earlier Aquino and Duterte administrations. However throughout the latter, Manila did its greatest to brush these beneath the rug.
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