The Armed Forces of the Philippines published a photograph on Thursday showing the presence of up to twelve Chinese vessels in Philippine territorial waters, an incursion that increases diplomatic tension between the authorities of the Asian archipelago and Beijing in the South China Sea.
In the image, captured on November 23, up to twelve Chinese ships are seen sailing near the Sabina Atoll, in the Spratly Islands, some 83 miles (135 kilometers) from the Philippine island of Palawan and within the exclusive economic zone of Philippines, sources from the Armed Forces confirmed to EFE by telephone.
Philippine Defense Minister Jose Faustino denounced the incident and expressed “great concern” over the number of ships sighted in Philippine territorial waters, calling the Chinese attitude “unacceptable” in a statement released on Wednesday.
“The president’s orders are clear: we will not cede even an inch of Philippine land,” Faustino stressed in the statement, citing the words of the Philippine head of state, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who last July defended the territorial integrity of his country before the intimidation of Beijing in its first debate on the state of the nation.
The new incident occurred in one of the closest atolls to the island of Palawan, where US Vice President Kamala Harris gave a speech on a Philippine Coast Guard ship last October to reinforce US support. to the Philippines in its territorial dispute with China, on its official visit to the archipelago.
The two Asian countries are in a territorial dispute over the sovereignty of several islands and atolls in the South China Sea, which Beijing claims as its own for “historical reasons”, despite the fact that some of them are less than 200 miles from the Philippine west coast. , a limit that the UN established as the sovereign maritime border between States in a convention to which China adhered in 1996.