Philippines officials said last week that Chinese coast guard vessels had fired water cannon and side-swiped a Manila fisheries bureau boat on the way to deliver supplies to Filipino fishermen around the Scarborough Shoal, a move that drew condemnation from the US.
China’s Coast Guard said that four Philippine ships had attempted to enter waters it described as its own around the Scarborough Shoal, which Beijing calls Huangyan Island.
China submitted nautical charts earlier this month to the United Nations that it said supported its claims to the waters, which a 2016 international tribunal found to be a long established fishing ground for fishermen of many nationalities.
Following the charts’ submission, a spokesperson for the Philippines’ National Maritime Council, said China’s claims were baseless and illegal.
The 2016 tribunal ruled that China’s claim had no basis under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and that its blockade around the Scarborough Shoal was in breach of international law.
Beijing has never recognised the decision.
Sovereignty over the Scarborough Shoal has never been established.
The Philippines and other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have spent years negotiating a code of conduct with Beijing for the strategic waterway, with some nations in the bloc insisting that it be based on UNCLOS.
EEZs give the coastal nation jurisidiction over living and nonliving resources in the water and on the ocean floor.
