A year ago, a PLA Navy vessel smashed into a China Coast Guard vessel while the two vessels were harassing a Philippine patrol boat. It was sort of an accident. They didn’t mean to thwock each other. The goal had been to ram the Philippine vessel or, in swiping, just barely miss it. Now we’re learning that two of the aggressors died (Agence France-Presse, August 7, 2026).
Last August, a Chinese navy vessel collided with one from its own coast guard while chasing a Philippine patrol boat near a disputed shoal, video footage released by Manila showed.
A Chinese Coast Guard spokesperson confirmed at the time that there had been a confrontation, but did not mention the collision, nor injuries or deaths.
The People’s Armed Police Force said on social media Wednesday it had awarded four “martyrs”—including Coast Guard sailors Yi Xinyu and Cheng Long—a special title for “steadfast political convictions, exemplary deeds and outstanding achievements.”
Yi and Cheng both died on Aug. 11, 2025—the date of last year’s collision—in a “rights defense operation,” according to their profiles on the government’s “China Martyrs Network.”
“Yi sacrificed his life…while participating in a frontline rights defense operation in the South China Sea,” according to the website.
Cheng “heroically sacrificed his life during a maritime rights defense operation”, the website reads.
The only contribution of the Philippine vessel to the deaths of the two sailors was getting out of the way. Maritime Executive reports details of the incident:
The date in the notice corresponds with the date of the collision, and the casualty occurred during the process of CCG “safeguarding” activity. On that day, the cutter CCG 3104 was under way near Scarborough Shoal, pursuing and harassing the Philippine Coast Guard vessels Teresa Magbanua and Suluan as they escorted the supply ship Pamamalakaya. CCG 3104 had deployed its water cannon, and was approaching Suluan from astern. Meanwhile, the PLA Navy Type 052D destroyer Guilin (164) attempted to cut off Suluan by crossing at high speed from the Philippine cutter’s starboard side. Suluan accelerated out of danger, but the move put Guilin’s hull right in front of CCG 3104’s bow. The Chinese cutter hit the Chinese destroyer, crumpling CCG 3104’s bow in by about 30 feet and rendering it inoperable. The destroyer’s hull was dented, but otherwise unharmed.
Getting out of the way was not, it seems, a severe enough form of culpability to justify a major explosion of feigned outrage even on the part of the Chinese Communist Party. We might have still gotten that performance, though, had there been no video of the incident showing how it all went down, that the bullies did it to themselves.
There’s a moral in here somewhere about the virtue of not causing trouble for the sake of causing trouble. But the CCP ignores lessons of this kind.
