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The commander of the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet stated on Sunday that China’s “aggressive behavior” in the South China Sea, including the deployment of water cannon by its coast guard against a Philippine vessel, must be contested and restrained.
Vice Admiral Karl Thomas promised the Philippines of U.S. support, saying: “shared challenges” in response to “My forces are out here for a reason.” in the region.
The Seventh Fleet, with its headquarters in Japan, is the largest of the U.S. Navy’s forward-deployed fleets. It runs up to 70 ships, has around 150 aircraft, and more than 27,000 sailors.
It has bases in Japan, South Korea, and Singapore from which it covers a region of 124 million square kilometers (48 million square miles).
On August 5, a Chinese coast guard vessel fired water cannon at a Philippine boat that was ferrying supplies to soldiers on board a battleship Manila that had been purposefully grounded on a shoal in the South China Sea, exposing a regional rift between Washington and Beijing.
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China-Philippines Tensions Rise
A regional divide between Washington and Beijing was made public on August 5 when a Chinese coast guard vessel shot water cannon at a Filipino boat that was transporting supplies to soldiers aboard the battleship Manila, which had been deliberately grounded on a shoal in the South China Sea.
In 2016, a tribunal ruled that Beijing’s broad claim to sovereignty over the majority of the South China Sea had any validity in law, leading to the Philippines winning an international arbitration judgement against China.
China claims historical sovereignty over the South China Sea, but it has constructed militarized artificial islands there that border the exclusive economic zones of the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia.
A request for comment was not immediately answered by the Chinese Embassy in Manila.
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Source: Reuters
