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MANILA (Reuters) – The Philippine coast guard said on Saturday it would conduct normal resupply missions for troops stationed on a disputed atoll in the South China Sea, even as it expects more Chinese ships to be sent to the region.
The Philippines sends materials to a handful of infantrymen living aboard an old warship that intentionally ran aground on Second Thomas Reef in 1999 to assert Manila’s sovereignty claims over the atoll.
China claims almost all of the South China Sea, adding the Second Thomas Shoal, and has deployed many ships to patrol it.
“We will continue to carry out those harmful missions despite our limited number of vessels and despite the growing number of Chinese vessels that will be deployed,” Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela told a news conference.
“We want to make sure the materials get to our troops,” Tarriela said, adding that the Chinese coast guard is deploying smaller vessels to try to outwit their Philippine counterparts.
He spoke a day after the Philippines condemned China’s coast guard for “unprovoked coercive acts and harmful maneuvers,” attaching a water cannon to one of its ships in an attempt to disrupt a resupply mission.
The Chinese embassy in Manila said on Saturday that its coast guard had taken coercive measures against the Philippine ships after they undermined Beijing’s sovereignty.
The U. S. State Department said Saturday it supports the Philippines, with which it has signed a defense treaty.
“We urge the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to respect the freedoms of navigation on the high seas guaranteed to all states by foreign law,” it said in a statement, reaffirming its commitment to the defense treaty.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos has sought a warmer attitude toward Washington, reversing his predecessor’s pro-China stance and sparking emerging tensions in the South China Sea.
(Reporting via Neil Jerome Morales; editing by Leslie Adler)