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Footage released Sunday by Chinese state media shows the moment China's coast guard confronted a group of Filipino fishermen gathering mollusks in a contentious part of the South China Sea.
The scene took place on January 12 at Scarborough Shoal, which lies within the Philippines' internationally recognized exclusive economic zone—a 200-nautical mile zone within which the country, a U.S. ally, claims the sole right to marine resources.
Scarborough Shoal, known in Manila as Bajo De Masinloc and in Bejing as Huangyan Island, is a resource-rich atoll that sits about 120 nautical miles from Luzon, the nearest Philippine province, and nearly 600 from China's Hainan province. China claimed de facto control over the area in 2012 after its maritime militia occupied nearby waters in overwhelming numbers.
In the video published Sunday by China's Global Times media outlet, a small group of fishermen can be seen collecting shells along a reef. Suddenly Chinese coast guard members are shown arriving at the scene and disembarking from their rigid inflatable boat.
In the caption, the video claims the coast guard personnel gave "verbal warnings" over the group's activities, which it called illegal.
Last week, Philippine coast guard spokesperson Jay Tarriela shared to social media footage allegedly of the same incident, recorded by an observing fisherman nearby.
In a statement, that fisherman said the Chinese personnel had harassed those collecting shelled creatures and kept them from leaving until they threw back their catch.
Tarriela said on social media that the agency had confirmed the authenticity of the videos recorded on January 12 and "taken steps to gather sworn statements from the individuals involved."
Newsweek reached out to the Armed Forces of the Philippines and Chinese Foreign Ministry with written requests for comment.
"For the past decades, China has been endeavoring to alter the political demarcation of the West Philippine Sea by insisting on its baseless expansive narratives," Don McLain Gill, a Manila-based geopolitical analyst and lecturer at De La Salle University's Department of International Studies, told Newsweek.
"Unfortunately, what China forgot to mention in its video was that the Filipino fishermen were well within Philippine EEZ. Thus, making such activities legal and consistent with international law."
Scarborough Shoal, like the Spratly Islands feature Second Thomas Shoal, have been at the center of the dramatic maritime confrontations seen over the past year as Phillipine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. takes a more assertive stance toward China.
China's unsubstantiated claims over the majority of the South China Sea overlap with those of Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan, in addition to the Philippines.
Beijing also has a longstanding territorial feud with Tokyo over the Japan-administered Senkaku Islands, which the Chinese call the Diaoyu Islands.
A China Coast Guard spokesperson told media Saturday the coast guard had taken "necessary control measures" against a Japanese fishing boat and patrol boats that had "illegally entered the territorial waters" of the uninhabited Senkakus, warning them to leave the area.
"China's statements represent its continuous effort to spread disinformation to slowly alter geopolitical geopolitical discourses surrounding the West Philippine Sea, or tbe portion of the South China Sea that falls under Philippine EEZ based on International law.
Update 1/29/24, 12:30 p.m. ET: This article was updated with comments from Don McLain Gill.
About the writer
Micah McCartney is a reporter for Newsweek based in Taipei, Taiwan. He covers U.S.-China relations, East Asian and Southeast Asian ... Read more