The People’s Republic of China increases its bullying in the Philippine part of the South China Sea, which ISW describes as “increased PRC presence and coercion around disputed features in the South China, particularly Scarborough Shoal” (Institute for the Study of War, August 18, 2025).
Example. On August 11, the China Coast Guard and People’s Liberation Army Navy ships try to stop the Philippines from resupplying vessels near the shoal. There’s a crash between two of the PRC ships. There’s video of the crash. It all happened close to the nearest coast of the Philippines and far away from the nearest coast of the People’s Republic of China.
The Philippines released video footage that showed the PLA destroyer Guilin move in front of the CCG ship 3104 as it was pursuing a PCG [Philippine Coast Guard] ship, causing the crash. The footage showed serious damage to the CCG ship. PCG spokesperson Jay Tarriela reported that the PCG resupply mission was successful and that the Philippines offered support and medical assistance to the CCG crew following the collision. PRC MFA spokesperson Lin Jian [shown above] did not acknowledge the crash but blamed the Philippines for “deliberate infringements and provocations.”
The deliberate infringement and provocation consists of Philippine moving around in Philippine territory. CCP mouthpiece Lin Jian’s indictment resembles that of a home invader who complains that you are provoking him by moving from one room of your own home to another. If you would just never move around, there wouldn’t be any problem.
Lin claimed that the Philippines had sent a “number of coast guard ships, official ships, and so-called fishing boats” into Scarborough Shoal’s territorial waters and that the PRC had been defending its territory.
The fishing boats were fishing boats. The PRC was not defending its own territory but invading Philippine territory.
The CCG claimed that the PRC’s operation was “professional, standardized, legitimate and legal”…
The PRC’s operation was professional, standardized harassment of the Philippines and expert crashing of PRC ships into each other, and the incursion was illegitimate and illegal if international agreements and common sense mean anything. Which to the People’s Republic of China they do not; but let us defer to better analysis of such questions than that proffered by the thugs committing the crimes.
…and accused the Philippines of using coast guard ships and official vessels to intrude into PRC waters “under the guise of transporting supplies to fishing vessels.”
Quite a bold gambit on the part of the Philippine government. It undertakes a mission to resupply vessels and then, later, before the whole world, has the audacity to assert that it was “transporting supplies” to those vessels. The guise has been penetrated.
This is the way the Chinese Communist Party talks.
Were the vessels that were being resupplied by the Philippines not really fishing vessels but in fact the vanguard of a Philippine invasion of the People’s Republic of China, a plot foiled when the two PRC ships crashed into each other in Philippine waters? We may never know unless we ignore CCP propagandists say and just go with the facts.
