A Chinese coastguard ship came dangerously close to a Philippine patrol ship in the South China Sea, sparking fears of a territorial dispute in the contested waters.
The Chinese ship manoeuvred and came within 4 metres of the patrol ship near the Second Thomas Shoal. One other Philippine coastguard vessel was blocked and surrounded by the Chinese coastguard and militia ships.
The altercation had dragged on for about eight hours on Wednesday after China formed a blockade in the high seas off the shoal that both nations have laid claim to.
Two supply boats being escorted by the Philippine coastguard had breached the Chinese blockade and delivered food and other supplies to a Filipino marine outpost at the shoal.
Remember before the pandemic how WWIII was trending and since then we’ve seen the Russia Ukraine war, this refreshed israel/Palestine conflict, and the raising maritime tensions in south China seas.
I think we’re back on track!
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine started in 2014, this Hamas attack is a bad one but nothing new, and china having territorial disputes in the South China Sea is most certainly par for the course.
Humans suck and none of this is really out of the ordinary. russia had been committing genocide in Syria and it just didn’t get the attention Ukraine is.
This is all normal shitty human behavior that occurs all around the world every year.
Did the Russia Ukraine situation start with the annexation of crimea in 2014, sure.
That wasn’t a war. That was an invasion and an annexation. This is now a war. It has fundamentally changes. Ask literally any Russian. Or Ukrainian.
Yes, humans do suck, but to pretend like things haven’t gotten worse opens the door for that spiral to continue.
Things have gotten much worse, and it is not business as usual.
It was more than annexation. russia committed terrorist attacks, including downing MH17. They had a lot of actual conflict in Donbas, Luhansk, and the Eastern portion of Ukraine. [1]
And again, even if you want to unjustifiably exclude the russian conflict in Ukraine beginning in 2014, how is that different than what was happening in Syria?
In Syria, russia was using chemical weapons to force civilians hiding in rubble out into the street, where they would execute them. [2]
What you’re guilty of is declinism, whether you want to believe it or not.
One could argue russia committed worse atrocities in Syria than they have been in Ukraine. But that coverage wasn’t as popular in the media.
What you’re doing is making assumptions based on your subjective perspective, not a factual representation of the world. Your view is very common, but not representative of reality. [3]
If any year ever feels like the worst, it’s mostly because our brains have a tendency to judge the present more harshly. Unfettered media consumption skews our perception, and it becomes easy to slide into unhealthy patterns of belief… the belief that civilization is on the decline is a tradition as old as civilization itself. Even Ancient Athenians complained in the fifth century B.C. that their democracy wasn’t what it used to be. These days, we call that belief “declinism,” or “decline bias.” [4]
Yay!!!
Not.
There are by now about a dozen stories, from assorted high profile press outlets, all stemming from the same incident involving Fillipino coastguard vessels on which international reporters had been invited. The Philippines have played the PR game exceptionally and uncharacteristically well. Maybe the US has helped by providing advice (just speculating).
It’s hard to predict whether this will have a deterrent effect on Chinese actions, though.
China has long claimed sovereignty over almost the entire South China Sea, even though it overlaps with the waters of Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei, Taiwan and the Philippines.
If China claimed this water, it’ll effectively become a south east asia country and eligible to join ASEAN /s
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The altercation had dragged on for about eight hours on Wednesday after China formed a blockade in the high seas off the shoal that both nations have laid claim to.
They have been violating international law, particularly the collision regulations,” Philippines’ coastguard spokesperson Commodore Jay Tarriela said at a briefing.
He said a collision was averted when one of the two Philippine vessels, the BRP Sindangan, rapidly reversed its engine to avoid slamming into the Chinese coastguard ship that crossed its bow at a distance of only a metre.
The hostilities between the two erupted at dawn after the Chinese coastguard ship closely tailed the Philippine vessels enroute to the Second Thomas Shoal.
The long-simmering territorial disputes on the world’s busiest trade routes are considered a sensitive fault line in the US-China rivalry in the region.
A small contingent of Filipino marines and navy personnel has stood guard for years on a long-marooned, but still commissioned warship, the BRP Sierra Madre, at the shoal.
The original article contains 658 words, the summary contains 164 words. Saved 75%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
