US Ally Locked in Dispute with China Condemns 'All the Violations'

China, not the Philippines, is acting provocatively in the South China Sea, the spokesperson for Manila's armed forces said this week.

The Philippines continues to abide by international law and is operating within its own domestic law, Col. Medel Aguilar told the country's state broadcaster PTV on Tuesday.

"They are the ones committing all the violations," Aguilar said.

Relations between the two countries are at a tipping point following months of standoffs in the energy-rich waters, where China claims dominion over large maritime zones and has been blocking supply runs to Philippine-held features like Second Thomas Shoal.

The run-ins have resulted in collisions, water cannon broadsides from the Chinese coast guard, and the alleged use of sonic weapons by China's ships.

Aguilar said his country's actions were consistent with international maritime law. Second Thomas Shoal and other reefs claimed by Beijing fall within the Philippines' exclusive fishing waters.

Manila has "sovereign rights" within its territorial waters and its exclusive economic zone, he said. Both are recognized under the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, which China has ratified.

Aguilar was responding to remarks a day earlier by the Chinese Foreign Ministry, whose spokesperson Mao Ning urged the Philippines to "stop pursuing the wrong course" and instead settle the territorial feud "through negotiation and consultation."

Mao said the Philippines was acting provocatively by continuing its missions to resupply front-line troops in the Spratly Islands archipelago.

China's Foreign Ministry didn't immediately respond to Newsweek's request for comment.

Manila has accused Chinese ships of temporarily blinding members of its coast guard with a powerful laser and, during a blockade near Beijing-controlled Scarborough Shoal earlier this month, deploying a long-range acoustic device.

Wu Qian, a spokesperson for the Chinese Defense Ministry, said at a monthly press conference on Thursday that the Philippines was "hyping up" the South China Sea dispute.

He denied China's coast guard ships had used sonic weapons or military-grade lasers against Philippine crews. The accusations were "a total fabrication," Wu said.

"China has neither the intention nor the need to use such devices," Wu said.

China's maritime militia—a fleet of paramilitary fishing boats whose existence Beijing does not officially acknowledge—continues to be seen occupying areas within the Philippines' exclusive economic zone.

The United States and a number of American allies have joined the Philippines in condemning the Chinese maneuvers, which they called unsafe and out of step with maritime norms.

After the latest maritime showdown, American officials repeated Washington's "ironclad" commitment to Manila under their decades-old Mutual Defense Treaty, which covers attacks against the latter in the South China Sea.

In an analysis published on Tuesday, Ray Powell, director of the Stanford-affiliated SeaLight project, said China's behavior aligned with the philosophy of former Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin: "You probe with bayonets: if you find mush, you push. If you find steel, you withdraw."

"Beijing routinely probes with bayonets—it escalates tensions and creates instability in order to extract concessions," said Powell, who likened the Chinese government to an "arsonist who lights fires, then blames its victims and demands they put them out at their own expense."

In 2016, an arbitral tribunal in The Hague ruled against China's maritime claims in vast sections of the South China Sea. Beijing has never recognized the verdict.