0
0
Things recently got intense in the South China Sea as Chinese Coast Guard sailors boarded Philippine resupply boats “pirate” style. Footage released Thursday, June 20, shows the “brutal assault” with “bladed weapons.” CNN is calling it a “major escalation in a festering dispute that threatens to drag the United States into another global conflict.”
Chinese act like pirates
Officials in the Philippines are upset with the Chinese Coast Guard. The ongoing dispute involves a cluster of barren and desolate rocks which happen to be in a strategic location. The Spratly Islands are claimed by every nation in the region, especially China. The big snag is that the Philippines seized possession of them by grounding an old ship on St. Thomas Shoal.
They’re keeping a crew aboard to maintain their legal claim. The Pooh Bear’s trying to starve them out by intercepting their resupply vessels. There’s been a big fight, usually using water cannons, every time the supply boats show up. This time was different, with an attention getting twist.
Chinese coast guard officers aggressively boarded one craft “brandishing an ax.” Other “bladed or pointed tools” were wielded against the Filipino soldiers, used to slash their rubber boats. Manilla calls that “a brazen act of aggression.”
The footage from the recent clash near the Second Thomas Shoal depicts Chinese Coast Guard boats surrounding and boarding a #Philippine Navy vessel in #SouthChinaSea. Behaving like a pirate, the Chinese coast guards seized the weapons of Filippino soldiers. 1/3 @GordianKnotRay pic.twitter.com/AaNDnZJayU
— Dr. Minh Tran (@MinhDr18) June 21, 2024
China Blames the Philippines for starting it because they shouldn’t be there in the first place. “They deliberately punctured our rubber boats using knives and other pointed tools,” Alfonso Torres Jr., commander of the Armed Forces of the Philippines Western Command relates.
The incident actually happened on Monday, June 17, but it took a while to make it into the headlines. CNN notes that conflict has become a regular event during the Philippine missions to “resupply its soldiers stationed on a beached World War II-era warship that asserts Manila’s territorial claims over the atoll.”
An atoll is just an island with a hole in the middle, like a doughnut. This time, the Chinese seriously escalated the tension over the “resource-rich and strategically important waterway.”
An inflection point
It’s clear that Xi Jinping is taking the rumors of Joe Biden’s incompetence and dementia seriously. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has been repeatedly MIA lately, undergoing “routine” medical procedures and he’s already announced he won’t be sticking around the Pentagon much longer. What better time for the Chinese military to assert authority in the South China Sea. Maybe even invade Taiwan and get it over with before Donald Trump takes charge again.
Their side of the story is that “The Philippine operation was not for humanitarian supplies at all. The Philippine vessels carried not only construction materials but also smuggled weapons. They also intentionally rammed into Chinese vessels and splashed water and threw things on Chinese law-enforcement personnel.” That’s their story and they’re sticking to it.
Even the liberal left is beginning to take notice that “the scenes captured in the latest footage mark an inflection point in the long-simmering tensions, with China adopting new, far more openly aggressive tactics that, analysts say, appear calculated to test how the Philippines and its key defense ally – the United States – will respond.”
Apparently, Chinese claim that it was #Philippines who provoked CCG during the recent incident at Second Thomas Shoal. But below is a video, clearly depicting 3 CCG ships harassing a small Filipino coastal craft. How is this a provocation by Philippines? 1/3 @GordianKnotRay pic.twitter.com/NHl8vrR5Mv
— Nguyen Thi hong (@NguyenThih36) June 19, 2024
We aren’t showing the Chinese much in the way of a response, which will only encourage them. According to State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, the “United States stands with its ally the Philippines and condemns the escalatory and irresponsible actions” by China. That should teach them.
Senior Philippine military officials were hopping mad at a press conference on Wednesday. Chinese Coast Guard officers “illegally boarded” the Philippine rubber boats. They “looted” seven disassembled rifles stored in gun cases. The barbarians also “destroyed” an “outboard motor, communication and navigation equipment and took the personal cellphones of Filipino personnel.”
As pointed out by General Romeo Brawner Jr, who’s Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, “only pirates do this. Only pirates board, steal, and destroy ships, equipment, and belongings.“
