A bid by the Philippines to have the United Nations formally recognise the extent of its continental seabed in parts of the disputed South China Sea could encourage similar claims from rival claimant states, observers said.

The UN might not give what Manila wants, but the action will add layers of complexity to the already tangled regional disputes and possibly induce tougher countermeasures from Beijing, they added.

The Philippines last week filed a submission to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS), seeking confirmation on the extent of its undersea continental seabed in the West Palawan Region facing the South China Sea, according to Manila's foreign ministry.

"The seabed and the subsoil extending from our archipelago up to the maximum extent allowed by Unclos hold significant potential resources that will benefit our nation and our people for generations to come," Philippine Foreign Assistant Secretary Marshall Louis Alferez said in a statement.

Unclos is the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which grants exclusive rights to exploit natural resources in continental shelf to a coastal state.

The move by the Philippines drew swift opposition from Beijing, which urged the commission not to review Manila's submission as it involved disputed maritime space.

China's foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said on Monday that the commission should not consider or qualify the submission by the Philippines if it involves delimitation of disputed waters, in line with the rules of procedure of the CLCS.

Lin said Beijing was still gathering information, but Manila's "unilateral submission" of an extended continental shelf infringes upon China's sovereign rights and jurisdiction.

Maritime affairs experts held similar views, predicting that Manila's bid was unlikely to succeed, and Beijing would view the move as a legal challenge that further complicated the South China Sea disputes.

"It seems unlikely that CLCS will be able to validate any such claim ... the Commission has, as a rule, avoided making any delimitation decisions when there are outstanding jurisdictional or sovereignty disputes," said Isaac Kardon, senior fellow for China studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Beijing would see the claim as "another legal and political challenge from Manila" just like the 2016 South China Sea arbitration, and view it as an attempt to undermine China's extensive claims using a UN institutional approach, he added.

Information was still being gathered about Manila's "unilateral submission" of an extended continental shelf, China's foreign ministry said on Monday. 

Mainland China claims almost the entire South China Sea, including parts claimed by the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam.

In 2016, an international tribunal ruled in favour of the Philippines, dismissing China's broad claims as having no legal basis. However, Beijing has rejected and criticised the ruling.

Experts said that even though the details of Manila's submission had not yet been made public, its continental shelf claims might overlap with those of other coastal states in the South China Sea, and could potentially propel other claimant states to adopt similar tactics.

"The Philippines' submission could be a potential risk that sets a precedent for other claimant states, and they may file similar ECS (extended continental shelf) submissions to assert their rights," said Ding Duo, an associate research fellow at the National Institute for South China Sea Studies in Hainan.

He added that claimant countries could file their submissions separately, but joint submissions were also possible, and either situation would further complicate the South China Sea disputes.

"This will make the dispute even more complex and harder to resolve, and introduces a new point of contention for how Beijing and Manila should properly manage and handle their differences in the South China Sea," Ding said.

"In a nutshell, Manila's doings add more complexity to the already complicated South China Sea disputes, rather than simplifying it."

But Lucio Pitlo III, the president of the Philippine Association for Chinese Studies, said the Philippines' latest move and the 2016 arbitration were part of its efforts to use international law to protect its maritime claims.

"Both will affect the interests of other disputants in the semi-enclosed sea, although officially, the 2016 ruling only binds Manila and Beijing, a judgment China continues to reject. In like manner, a unilateral ECS submission may also impact the interests of other littoral states," he said.

Maritime observers predicted that Beijing would retaliate against Manila with tough operational and diplomatic measures.

"China might also increase the intensity of their interdictions at Second Thomas Shoal or escalate elsewhere in the South China Sea against Philippines interests," Carnegie's Kardon said, adding that China might also choose to publish baselines around the Spratlys to refute the Philippines' claims.

Baselines are an important concept in defining maritime boundaries and asserting jurisdictions over resources, which act as the starting points from which a country's territorial sea, exclusive economic zone, and continental shelf are measured.

Beijing could opt for stronger countermeasures to safeguard its rights at sea, especially during stand-offs with Philippine vessels in the South China Sea, according to Ding.

"Beijing believes it is crucial to make Manila pay a price for its actions, or else it will continue to provoke and hit the nerve repeatedly," he said.

The latest clash happened on Monday when the Philippines sent another resupply mission to an ageing ship that was deliberately grounded on the Second Thomas Shoal to assert Manila claims. Beijing said Manila had attempted to deliver construction supplies, which China has ruled unacceptable.

The Chinese coastguard said on Tuesday that it exerted control measures over the Philippine vessels during Monday's collision, such as issuing warnings, boarding the Philippine ship and conducting inspections.

Ding said the move was a clear demonstration of Beijing's resolve to implement effective control measures in response to the Philippines' actions.

Quoting an anonymous source, the Philippine media reported that China Coast Guard towed one of the Philippines' boats and confiscated the crew's firearms during the Monday run-in, while also injuring some Filipino crew members.

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In South China Sea dispute, Philippines' bolder hand tests Beijing

Philippines and U.S. troops participate in joint live fire exercises.

 Huddled in the presidential situation room in February last year, senior Philippines officials faced a stark choice.

Military and intelligence leaders watched as coast guard officers showed photos of what the agency said was a military-grade laser that China had pointed at a Philippines ship in disputed waters days earlier.

Eduardo Ano, the national security adviser and chair of the South China Sea taskforce, had to decide whether to release the pictures and risk Beijing's ire, or refrain from aggravating his giant neighbour.

"The public deserves to know," the retired general told the officials. "Publish the photographs."

The previously undisclosed meeting marked a pivotal moment, as Manila began a publicity blitz to highlight the intensifying territorial dispute in the South China Sea, where the ramming of ships, use of water cannons and ensuing diplomatic protests have sharply raised tensions.

"It was a turning point and the birth of the transparency policy," National Security Council spokesperson Jonathan Malaya, who attended the meeting and recounted the exchange, told Reuters. "The goal was to eventually impose severe costs to Beijing's reputation, image and standing."

Malaya said President Ferdinand Marcos Jr had directed officials to "civilianise and internationalise" the dispute, which they had achieved by using the coast guard and routinely embedding foreign journalists on missions. "This became an important component of building international support for the Philippines, because our audience is also foreign governments," he added.

This account of the Philippines' policy switch and its implications is based on interviews with 20 Philippine and Chinese officials, regional diplomats and analysts. They said publicising China's actions, combined with Manila's deepened military alliance with the U.S., had constrained Beijing's ability to escalate matters at sea but raised the risks of Chinese economic retaliation and U.S. involvement.

The February 2023 meeting occurred days after Marcos granted the U.S. access to four more military bases in the Philippines, rekindling defence ties that had suffered under his predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte.

"China has few escalatory options left without triggering the U.S.-Philippines mutual defence treaty and risking a military confrontation between Chinese and U.S. forces," said Ian Storey, a security scholar at Singapore's ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute.

Marcos has also pursued a diplomatic offensive, gaining statements of support for the Philippines' position from countries such as Canada, Germany, India and Japan.

The South China Sea is rich in oil and gas. About $3 trillion in trade passes through it annually. U.S. access to Philippine bases could prove important in a war over Taiwan.

China, whose claims to most of the sea were invalidated by an international tribunal in 2016, says Philippine vessels illegally intrude into waters surrounding disputed shoals. It has warned Marcos, who took office in June 2022, against misjudging the situation.

"This is brinkmanship, poker," said Philippine legal scholar Jay Batongbacal. "Brinkmanship is taking things to the edge, trying to see who loses his nerve. Poker is a game of bluffing and deception – one could be doing both at the same time."

In response to Reuters questions, China's foreign ministry said the Philippines had been stoking tensions with "provocative actions at sea in an attempt to infringe on China's territorial sovereignty and maritime rights".

China, it said, would defend its interests while handling the dispute peacefully through dialogue.

A U.S. State Department spokesperson said Manila's transparency initiative had succeeded in calling greater attention to China's "disregard for international law" and actions that endangered Philippine service members.

The spokesperson would not comment on the risk of U.S. military involvement but said the U.S. would support the Philippines if it faced economic coercion from China.

'AWAKE AT NIGHT'

The conflict is over Scarborough Shoal and Second Thomas Shoal, where the Philippine navy maintains a rusting warship, BRP Sierra Madre, that it beached in 1999 to reinforce Manila's sovereignty claims. A small crew is stationed on it.

Chinese ships have sought to block resupply missions, by encircling Philippine vessels and firing water cannons that in March shattered a boat's windshield, injuring its crew. Manila released footage of the incident; China said it acted lawfully and professionally.

In February, Philippine ships recorded Chinese counterparts placing a barrier across the entrance to Scarborough Shoal. This week, both sides traded accusations over a collision involving their vessels near Second Thomas Shoal.

Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela taunts Chinese officials and state media on X, sometimes posting drone footage of maritime clashes. "If I were doing anything incorrect, I would have been shut down," he said.

Tarriela said the transparency drive had worked, by galvanising support for Manila while the threshold of China's aggression had not changed, despite an increase in incidents.

"They are still depending on their water cannon ... they are still stuck with that kind of tactic," he said.

The number of Chinese vessels around Second Thomas Shoal during Philippine resupply missions has grown from a single ship on average in 2021 to around 14 in 2023, the Center for Strategic and International Studies said in January.

Last month, China's coast guard came within metres of the Sierra Madre and seized supplies air-dropped to troops stationed there, according to Philippine officials. China, whose navy patrolled nearby, said Filipino soldiers pointed guns at its coast guard; Manila said they just held their weapons.

Philippine officials say they fear a fatal accident could escalate into open hostilities.

"That keeps a lot of us awake at night," the Philippines' ambassador to Washington, Jose Manuel Romualdez, told Reuters.

Manila also wants to avoid the kind of economic pressure it faced around a decade ago, when protracted Chinese customs checks caused Philippine bananas to rot on Chinese docks.

China was the Philippines' second-biggest export market in 2023, taking nearly $11 billion worth or 14.8% of all its shipments. China is the Philippines' top source of imports, mainly refined petroleum products and electronics.

Romualdez said Manila hoped China would "see the value of continuing our economic activity while trying to peacefully resolve the issue".

Edcel John Ibarra, a political scientist at the University of the Philippines, said Marcos risks provoking China into "a harder approach", such as non-tariff barriers and tourism restrictions. He pointed to changes China announced in May that allow its coast guard to detain foreigners without trial for 60 days.

'PARADIGM SHIFT'

The intensity of Manila's campaign has surprised its neighbours. Vietnam and Malaysia, which also have maritime disputes with Beijing, have been more cautious about what they release from their skirmishes with China.

"We are all watching this and talking amongst ourselves," said one Asian diplomat, who was not authorised to be named. "The Philippines has carved out a new strategy in standing up to Beijing over a point of friction."

Marcos said in December that diplomacy with China had achieved little, calling on Southeast Asia "to come up with a paradigm shift".

China's state media have expressed irritation with the transparency push.

The Philippines has been "playing the victim to deceive international public opinions", the state-backed Global Times said in an op-ed in May.

A key aspect of Manila's approach has been solidifying the U.S. alliance. Both countries made clear in May last year that their defence treaty also covers the coast guard. In April, Marcos participated in an unprecedented summit with his U.S. and Japanese counterparts.

A U.S. official involved in U.S.-China talks that month said Chinese officials have complained about these diplomatic breakthroughs behind closed doors, adding that Beijing was "feeling the squeeze".

Some Chinese scholars, like Zha Daojiong, at Peking University's School of International Studies, say the situation is at an impasse and that China will continue to be "essentially reactive" at flashpoints like Second Thomas Shoal.

"By responding to the Philippines' action, I guess they want to keep the message that this shoal is in dispute," he said.

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Philippines demands China return rifles and pay for boat damage after hostilities in disputed sea

Armed Forces of the Philippines, Chinese Coast Guards hold an axe as they approach Philippine troops on a resupply mission in the Second Thomas Shoal at the disputed South China Sea on June 17, 2024.

The Philippine military chief demanded Wednesday that China return several rifles and equipment seized by the Chinese coast guard in a disputed shoal and pay for damages in an assault he likened to an act of piracy in the South China Sea.

Chinese personnel on board more than eight motorboats repeatedly rammed then boarded the two Philippine navy inflatable boats Monday to prevent Filipino navy personnel from transferring food and other supplies including firearms to a Philippine territorial outpost in Second Thomas Shoal, which is also claimed by Beijing, according to Philippine officials.

After a scuffle and repeated collisions, the Chinese seized the boats and damaged them with machetes, knives and hammers. They also seized eight M4 rifles, which were packed in cases, navigation equipment and other supplies and wounded a number of Filipino navy personnel, including one who lost his right thumb, two Philippine security officials told The Associated on Tuesday.

The two officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of a lack of authority to discuss the sensitive conflict publicly.

Video and photographs issued by the Philippine military Wednesday night show the chaotic faceoff at the shoal, with Chinese personnel onboard boats brandishing knives, axe and sticks while surrounding two Philippine navy supply boats beside Manila's ship outpost. Sirens blare constantly as both sides yell at each other and the Chinese smash the Philippine navy boat with a pole and grab what appears to be a bag with a stick.

Pictures show a damaged Philippine navy boat with its side floaters slashed and deflated and another boat with its windshields and navigational screens shattered. A man displays a damaged cellphone.

"We are demanding that the Chinese return our rifles and our equipment and we’re also demanding that they pay for the damage they caused,” Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr., head of the Philippine armed forces, said in a news conference in western Palawan province, where he pinned a medal on the wounded navy officer.

“They boarded our boats illegally and seized our equipment,” Brawner said. “They’re now like pirates with this kind of actions.”

Armed with long knives and machetes, the Chinese coast guard personnel tried to beat the unarmed Filipinos, who resisted with their bare hands by parrying the blows and pushing back the Chinese, Brawner said. “Our objective is also to prevent war.”

Some of the Chinese pointed their knives at the Filipino navy personnel, he said.

China blamed the Philippines for the confrontation, saying the Filipino personnel “trespassed” into the shoal in defiance of its warnings.

“This is the direct cause of the incident,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said in Beijing. “The Chinese coast guard at the scene has taken professional law-enforcement measures with restraint aimed at stopping the illegal supply mission by the Philippine vessels and no direct measures were taken against the Philippine personnel.”

The United States renewed a warning Tuesday that it is obligated to defend the Philippines, a treaty ally.

Second Thomas Shoal, part of the disputed Spratly Islands, has been occupied by a small Philippine navy contingent aboard a grounded warship that has been closely monitored by China’s coast guard and navy in a yearslong territorial standoff. China claims the South China Sea virtually in its entirety.

There is fear that disputes in the South China Sea, long regarded as an Asian flashpoint, could escalate and pit the United States and China in a larger conflict. Aside from China and the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have conflicting territorial claims in the busy waterway.

Since last year, hostilities between China and the Philippines have escalated in the disputed waters, particularly in Second Thomas Shoal, which is less than 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) from the Philippine coast and where the BRP Sierra Madre, now encrusted with rust, was deliberately grounded in 1999 to create a territorial outpost. The ship remains an actively commissioned military vessel, meaning an attack on it could be considered by the Philippines as an act of war.

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Philippines blames China for ‘personnel injury and vessel damage’ in South China Sea collision

Manila has accused China of injuring Filipino personnel and damaging Philippine vessels during a South China Sea collision earlier this week, as tensions simmer over territorial disputes in the resource-rich and strategically important waterway.

The Philippines and China have both blamed each other for the clash Monday near Second Thomas Shoal in the contested Spratly Islands, with a statement from the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday providing the first official confirmation from either side that injuries and damage were sustained. It follows multiple reports of injuries to Filipino sailors carried in local media and the Associated Press, citing sources, as well as from US officials.

The Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs “denounces the illegal and aggressive actions of Chinese authorities that resulted in personnel injury and vessel damage,” the statement said, without specifying how many sailors were wounded or providing any details of their injuries.

At least eight Filipinos were injured in the incident – including one sailor who lost a thumb, the AP reported Tuesday, citing an official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

CNN has reached out to the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine Coast Guard for comment.

Chinese state-run tabloid Global Times published photos of the incident online on Wednesday, showing a Philippine rigid-hulled inflatable boat sandwiched between a large China Coast Guard vessel and at least three other Chinese boats.

When asked about the incident in a news conference on Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said, “law enforcement measures taken by the Chinese Coast Guard on the spot were professional and restrained, aimed at stopping the illegal fishing by Philippine ships, and no direct measures were taken against Philippine personnel.”

The incident Monday is the latest in a string of confrontations between Chinese and Philippine ships that have raised the possibility of the South China Sea becoming a flashpoint for global conflict. It comes just weeks after Philippine President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. warned that the death of any Filipino citizen at the hands of another country in the waterway would be “very close” to an act of war.

Marcos has sought closer ties with the US, which has repeatedly stressed Washington’s “ironclad commitment” to a 1951 mutual defense treaty between the US and the Philippines that stipulates both sides would help defend each other if either were attacked by a third party.

China claims “indisputable sovereignty” over almost all of the South China Sea, and most of the islands and sandbars within it, including many features that are hundreds of miles from mainland China. Multiple governments, including Manila, hold competing claims.

In 2016, an international tribunal in The Hague ruled in favor of the Philippines in a landmark maritime dispute, which concluded that China has no legal basis to claim historic rights to the bulk of the South China Sea.

But Beijing has ignored the ruling. Instead it has increasingly pushed its maritime territorial claims, with China Coast Guard ships – reinforced by militia boats – involved in multiple clashes over the past year that have damaged Philippine ships and seen Filipino sailors injured by water cannon.

Known as Ayungin Shoal in the Philippines and Ren’ai Jiao in China, Second Thomas Shoal is a submerged teardrop-shaped reef located about 200 kilometers (125 miles) from the Philippine island of Palawan.

It lies in the Spratly Islands, a mostly uninhabited archipelago where oil and gas reserves have been found, and which is claimed by China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.

The Philippines carried a resupply on Monday to its soldiers stationed on the BRP Sierra Madre, a rusting US-built Philippine Navy landing craft that was run aground deliberately in 1999, with a national flag hoisted on board, to assert Manila’s territorial claims over Second Thomas Shoal.

The China Coast Guard on Monday said a Philippine supply ship “ignored China’s repeated solemn warnings” and “deliberately and dangerously” approached a Chinese vessel in “an unprofessional manner,” resulting in a collision.

A supply ship and two rubber boats from the Philippines had attempted to “illegally” deliver supplies to the stranded warship, China Coast Guard spokesperson Gan Yu said.

China’s Coast Guard also said it took measures including “warnings and interceptions, boarding inspections and forced evictions” against the Philippine vessels.

Multiple US officials criticized China’s actions Monday and stressed Washington’s support for Manila.

The “United States stands with its ally the Philippines and condemns the escalatory and irresponsible actions” by China, US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.

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