Philippine Military Calls China 'Forced Taking' Floating Objects in South China Sea

Illustration of Philippine warships. (Wikimedia Commons/Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Rawad Madanat)

JAKARTA - A Chinese coast guard ship on Sunday "forcibly seized" a floating object towed by a Philippine ship in the South China Sea, by cutting the rope that tied it to the ship, a Philippine military commander said.

Philippine naval authorities sent a ship to inspect the floating object after it was spotted on Sunday morning about 800 yards (730 meters) west of Thitu island, Vice Admiral Alberto Carlos, commander of Western Command (WESCOM) said in a statement.

The team tied the object to their boat and began towing it, before a Chinese coast guard vessel approached and blocked their path twice, then deployed an inflatable boat that cut the tow rope, bringing the object back to the coast guard vessel, the statement said.

The statement did not say what the object was, or whether a Chinese coast guard vessel indicated why it had taken the object.

The Chinese Embassy in the Philippines did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The incident came as U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris arrived in the Philippines on Sunday for talks aimed at reviving ties with Manila, an Asian ally crucial to Washington's efforts to counter China's increasingly assertive policies toward Taiwan.

Vice President Harris, whose three-day trip includes a stop in Palawan, an island on the edge of the South China Sea, will also reaffirm Washington's support for the 2016 international tribunal ruling, which overturned China's expansive claims in the disputed waterway, a senior US official said.

China claims most of the South China Sea, a strategic waterway through which billions of dollars worth of goods pass every year. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam also have claims.

Thitu, known to Filipinos as Pagasa, is close to Subi Reef, one of seven artificial islands in the Spratlys where China has installed surface-to-air missiles and other weapons.

In addition, Thitu, one of the nine features the Philippines occupies in the Spratly Islands, is a Southeast Asian country's most strategic outpost in the South China Sea.

Separately, the Philippine Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement it would conduct a thorough review of the incident, pending a detailed report from maritime law enforcement agencies.