China pushing Philippines ‘to the wall’ with sea aggression: Manila

MANILA, Philippines — A Philippine security official said Tuesday that China is “pushing us to the wall” with growing aggression in the disputed South China Sea and warned that “all options are on the table” for Manila’s response, including new international lawsuits.

A large Chinese coast guard ship patrolled the hotly disputed Scarborough Shoal in recent days and then sailed toward the northwestern coast of the Philippines on Tuesday, coming as close as 77 nautical miles, Philippine officials said in a news conference.

"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monster ship in Filipino waters … 77 nautical miles from our shoreline, is unacceptable and, therefore, it should be withdrawn immediately by the Chinese government,” Jonathan Malaya, assistant director-general of the National Security Council, said at the news conference alongside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 said in Beijing that his country's sovereignty in the South China Sea is well established and its coast guard patrols are lawful and justified.

“We once again urge the Philippines to immediately stop all infringement, provocation and malicious hype,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said at a daily briefing when asked about Malaya’s comments.

The Chinese government has repeatedly accused the Philippines and other rival claimant states including Vietnam and Malaysia of encroaching on what it says are “undisputed” Chinese territorial waters .

Two Philippine coast guard ships, backed by a small surveillance aircraft, repeatedly ordered the 541-foot Chinese coast guard ship to withdraw from the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone, a 200-nautical mile stretch of water, Philippine coast guard Commodore Jay Tarriela said.

“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 lopsided conflict has forced the Philippines to seek security arrangements with other Asian and Western countries, including Japan, with which it signed a key agreement last July which would allow their forces to hold joint combat training. The pact, which must be ratified by lawmakers of both countries before it takes effect, was the first such agreement to be forged by Japan in Asia.

China surrounded Scarborough Shoal with its coast guard and other ships after a tense territorial standoff with the Philippines in 2012. The Philippines responded by bringing its disputes with China to international arbitration in 2013 and largely won three years later when an arbitration panel in The Hague invalidated China’s expansive claims in the busy sea passage under the 1982 United Convention on the Law of the Sea.

China has rejected the 2016 arbitration ruling and continues to openly defy it.

“Will this lead to another case?” Malaya said. “All options are on the table because the closer the monster ship is in Philippine waters, the more it makes tensions high and the more that the Philippine government contemplates things it was not contemplating before.”

China has warned the Philippines from pursuing another legal case in an international forum after the arbitration, preferring bilateral negotiations, which give Beijing an advantage because of its size and clout, a senior Philippine official has said on condition of anonymity because of a lack of authority to discuss such sensitive issues publicly.

The two countries have also been discussing their territorial conflicts under a bilateral consultation mechanism to avoid an escalation of the disputes. The next round of talks will be hosted by China, the official said.

Associated Press writer Ken Moritsugu in Beijing contributed to this report.

菲律宾马尼拉——一名菲律宾安全官员周二表示，中国在有争议的南海地区日益咄咄逼人，正将我们“逼到墙角”，并警告说，马尼拉的应对措施“所有选项都在考虑之中”，包括提起新的国际诉讼。

菲律宾官员在新闻发布会上表示，近日一艘中国大型海警船在争议激烈的黄岩岛附近海域巡逻，随后于周二驶向菲律宾西北海岸，最近距离菲律宾海岸仅77海里。

“这艘巨型船只出现在菲律宾水域……距离我们海岸线77海里，这是不可接受的，因此中国政府应该立即将其撤回，”国家安全委员会助理总干事乔纳森·马拉亚在与高级军方和海岸警卫队官员一同出席的新闻发布会上表示。

“你们把我们逼到了墙角，”马来亚谈到中国时说。“我们不会，也绝不会通过退缩来回应这种恐吓策略。面对恐吓，我们不会动摇或屈服。相反，这只会更加坚定我们的决心，因为我们知道我们是对的。”

一位中国官员在北京表示，中国在南海的主权是毋庸置疑的，其海警巡逻是合法合理的。

外交部发言人郭家坤在例行记者会上被问及马来亚的言论时表示：“我们再次敦促菲律宾立即停止一切侵权、挑衅和恶意炒作。”

中国政府多次指责菲律宾和其他声索国（包括越南和马来西亚）侵犯其所谓的“无可争议的”中国领海。

菲律宾海岸警卫队准将杰伊·塔里埃拉表示，两艘菲律宾海岸警卫队舰艇在小型侦察机的支援下，多次命令541英尺长的中国海警船撤出菲律宾专属经济区（200海里水域）。

塔里埃拉说：“我们在那里所做的，是每时每刻、日复一日地挑战中国海警的非法存在，让国际社会知道，我们不会允许中国将这种非法部署正常化。”

自2022年中期费迪南德·马科斯总统上任以来，菲律宾积极捍卫其在南海（一条重要的全球贸易航道）的领土利益。这导致菲律宾军队与中国海警、海军以及疑似民兵船只频繁发生冲突，并引发了人们对更大规模武装冲突可能将美国——菲律宾的长期条约盟友和中国的地区竞争对手——卷入其中的担忧。

这场实力悬殊的冲突迫使菲律宾寻求与其他亚洲和西方国家达成安全协议，其中包括日本。去年7月，菲律宾与日本签署了一项关键协议，允许两国军队进行联合作战训练。该协议需经两国议员批准方可生效，也是日本在亚洲签署的首个此类协议。

2012年，中国与菲律宾发生紧张的领土争端后，中国派出海警和其他船只包围了黄岩岛。2013年，菲律宾将与中国的争端提交国际仲裁，并在三年后取得重大胜利。当时，海牙仲裁庭依据1982年《联合国海洋法公约》裁定中国在这一繁忙海域的广泛主张无效。

中国拒绝接受2016年的仲裁裁决，并继续公开藐视该裁决。

“这是否会导致另一起案件？”马拉亚说。“所有选项都在考虑之中，因为这艘巨型船只越靠近菲律宾水域，紧张局势就越高，菲律宾政府就越会考虑一些之前从未考虑过的事情。”

一位不愿透露姓名的菲律宾高级官员表示，中国已警告菲律宾，仲裁结束后不要在国际论坛上提起另一项法律诉讼，而是倾向于双边谈判。由于缺乏公开讨论此类敏感问题的授权，北京在双边谈判中占据优势。

为避免争端升级，两国一直在双边磋商机制下讨论领土争端。这位官员表示，下一轮会谈将由中国主办。

美联社驻北京记者 Ken Moritsugu 对本报道亦有贡献。