Boats of maritime police of China and Philippines collided in South China Sea

By Alimat Aliyeva

The collision of the boats of the Maritime Police of the People's Republic of China and the Philippines occurred off the Xianbin Reef (Sabina) in the South China Sea, Azernews reports.

"The Philippine vessel number 4410 ignored the repeated serious warnings of the PRC, in an unprofessional and dangerous manner deliberately rammed the Chinese boat number 21551, which carried out regular law enforcement activities," the statement said.

It is clarified that the emergency occurred on Monday at 03:24 Beijing time (23:24 Sunday Baku time) in the waters where two Philippine vessels "illegally invaded". According to Gan Yu, Beijing places all responsibility for the incident on the Philippine side.

"The Chinese Coast Guard has taken control measures in accordance with the law," the statement said.

Beijing has been arguing with several countries for several decades over the territorial affiliation of individual islands in the South China Sea, where significant hydrocarbon reserves have been discovered offshore. First of all, we are talking about the Paracel Islands (Xisha), the Nansha Archipelago (Spratly) and the Huangyan Reef (Scarborough) - these issues concern Brunei, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines.