MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A Philippine security manager said Tuesday that China is “pushing us to the wall” with the unfolding attack in the disputed South China Sea and warned that “everyone is at the table” for Manila’s response, adding the new foreign foreign prosecutor’s office.
A giant shipping of the Chinese Coast Guard Patrol on Tuesday of Scarborough Shoal in recent days, then sailed to the northwest coast of the Philippines on Tuesday, reaching 77 naval miles (143 kilometers), said the press conference of the Filipino officials.
“The presence of the monster ship in Filipino waters … 77 nautical miles from our shoreline, is unacceptable and, therefore, it should be withdrawn immediately by the Chinese government,” Jonathan Malaya, assistant director-general of the National Security Council, said at the news conference alongside senior military and coast guard officials.
“You’re pushing us to the wall,” Malaya said of China. “We do not and will not dignify these scare tactics by backing down. We do not waver or cower in the face of intimidation. On the contrary, it strengthens our resolve because we know we are in the right.”
A Chinese official told Beijing that the sovereignty of his country in the well of the Southern China Sea was established and that his Patrols of the Coast Guard were legal and justified.
“Once again we urge the Philippines to without delay, avoid any violations, provocation and threshing by malicious means,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said at a briefing in Malaysian remarks.
The Chinese government accused the Philippines and other states of rival applicants, adding Vietnam and Malaysia, to invade what it says of the “indisputable” Chinese territorial waters.
Two shipments to the Philippine Coast Guard, with the support of a small surveillance plane, ordered that the sending of the Chinese Coast Guard of 165 meters (541 feet) withdraw from the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines, a segment of two hundred náuticas (370 kilometers) Agua, said Comodoro of the Philippine Coast Guard, Jay Tarriela.
“What we’re doing there is, hour-by-hour and day-to-day, (we’re) challenging the illegal presence of the Chinese coast guard for the international community to know that we’re not going to allow China to normalize the illegal deployment,” Tarriela said.
Under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who took office in mid-2022, the Philippines has aggressively defended its territorial interests in the South China Sea, a key global trading route. That has brought Philippine forces into frequent confrontations with China’s coast guard, navy and suspected militia boats and sparked fears that a bigger armed conflict could draw in the United States, the Philippines’ longtime treaty ally and China’s regional rival.
The unequal clash has forced the Philippines to seek security arrangements with other Asian and Western countries, adding Japan, with which he signed a key agreement last July that would allow his strength to celebrate the training of joint fights. The pact, which will have to be ratified. Through legislators in any of the countries before it can enter into force, it was the first agreement of this type that was falsified through Japan in Asia.
China surrounded Scarborough Shoal with his coastal guard and other ships after a tense territorial confrontation with the Philippines in 2012. The Philippines responded by carrying their disputes with China to foreign arbitration in 2013 and in the giant victory 3 years later, when an arbitration panel of the Chinese homose prolonged the seapass claims frequented the 1982 United Convention on the Law of the Sea.
“Will this lead to the case?” Malaysia said. ” All the characteristics are on the table because the closer it gets to the monster in Philippine waters, the greater the tensions it makes, and the more the Philippine government contemplates things it didn’t contemplate before. “
China warned the Philippines to continue with the legal case in a foreign forum after arbitration, which prefers bilateral negotiations, which give Beijing a merit due to their duration and influence, said an official issue of Philippines Anonymity due to the lack of authority that speak publicly about those moved issues.
The two countries also discussed their territorial disputes under a bilateral consultation mechanism for dispute escalation. The next circular conversations will be organized through China, said the official.
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Associated Press Ken Moritsugu in Beijing contributed to this report.