This article was originally published by Radio Free Asia and is reprinted with permission.
The Philippines said it had successfully resupplied troops stationed at a disputed atoll in the South China Sea, a week after reaching a deal with China over the shoal at the center of sharply rising tensions between the neighbors.
Yet the Philippines and China have provided contradictory accounts of what happened on the weekend at the Second Thomas Shoal, known as Ayungin Shoal in the Philippines, as well as on what they agreed on in their deal.
The Philippine foreign ministry said in a statement that on Saturday it conducted a rotation and reprovisioning mission to the BRP Sierra Madre – an old Philippine warship deliberately grounded on the Second Thomas Shoal to serve as an outpost – without any “untoward incidents.”
It was the first mission conducted under an understanding the two countries reached a week earlier, it said.
The Philippine ministry announced on July 21 that the two sides had come to a provisional arrangement on the resupply of daily necessities and rotation missions to troops on the BRP Sierra Madre, but the details of the agreement have not been made public.
U.S. ally the Philippines has accused China, which claims the shoal it calls Ren’ai Jiao, of blocking missions to supply the Filipino troops there, leading to unruly confrontations between Chinese coast guard ships and Philippine vessels.
On June 17, a Filipino sailor was wounded in a violent encounter with Chinese coast guard personnel during a resupply mission.
‘Uneasy truce’
Responding to the statement from the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs, or DFA, a Chinese foreign ministry’s spokesperson said that China only allowed the Philippine mission on the weekend after having been “informed of the resupply before it was carried out.”
“After confirming on-the-scene that the Philippine vessel carried only humanitarian living necessities, the Chinese side let the vessel through,” the spokesperson said, adding that the entire process was monitored by the Chinese coast guard.
But the Philippines disputed China’s account. The Philippine National Security Council, or NSC, said in a statement on Sunday that “the Philippines did not and will never seek permission” from China to conduct resupply missions to the shoal.
“There was also no boarding and inspection by the Chinese coast guard as claimed by the Chinese foreign ministry in its statement,” it added.
During the resupply mission “various Chinese maritime forces were observed in the vicinity” but the Chinese vessels maintained their distance and did not undertake any action to disrupt it, the NSC said.
The Philippine DFA, in a second statement, criticized the Chinese ministry for misrepresenting what has been agreed between the Philippines and China and it reiterated that the agreement they reached should not prejudice national positions on the situation.
The Second Thomas Shoal is entirely within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone but also inside the so-called nine-dash line that China draws on its maps to claim historic rights over most of the South China Sea.
China previously said it maintained a “three-point principled position” on managing the situation at the Second Thomas Shoal.
The three principles are: China has sovereignty over the shoal and continues to demand that the Philippines tow away the BRP Sierra Madre; China is willing to allow resupply missions in a humanitarian spirit if the Philippines informs China in advance and after on-site verification is conducted; and the Philippines is not allowed to send large amount of construction material to strengthen the outpost or make it permanent.
Ray Powell, a maritime expert at Stanford University, said that as details of their recent agreement had not been made public, both sides were able to interpret it as they wanted to.
“Each side is able to claim the other accepted its preferred language and maintain the current uneasy truce, for now,” said Powell.
During a meeting between the U.S. State Secretary Antony Blinken and the Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi in Laos on Saturday, Blinken raised concern about China’s “destabilizing actions in the South China Sea, including at Second Thomas Shoal,” the U.S. State Department said.
Blinken also affirmed U.S. support for freedom of navigation and overflight and the peaceful resolution of disputes, consistent with international law.
For his part, Wang “urged the United States not to stir up trouble and undermine maritime stability” at the shoal, reported the Xinhua news agency.
