China says the Philippines has “provoked trouble” in the South China Sea with US support, Reuters reports

BEIJING (Reuters) – China accused the Philippines on Friday of “provoking trouble” in the South China Sea with U.S. backing, a week after Beijing and Manila traded accusations over a fresh confrontation in the disputed waters.

“The Philippine side, with the support and solicitation of the US, is causing trouble in many places in the South China Sea,” Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian said on his official WeChat account.

“The Philippines is well aware that the extent of its territory is determined by a series of international treaties and has never included China’s Spratly Islands and Scarborough Shoal,” he added.

Beijing and Manila have been involved in a series of clashes this year over reefs and outcrops in the South China Sea, which China claims almost entirely.

The Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam also claim parts of the sea. They worry that China’s expansive claim encroaches on their exclusive economic zones (EEZ), non-territorial waters that stretch 200 nautical miles (370 km) from a nation’s shores.

The Philippines’ National Maritime Council and its National Security Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Beijing’s latest comments.

The US Navy’s Seventh Fleet also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Philippine officials said last week that Chinese coast guard vessels fired water cannons and rammed a Bureau of Fisheries boat in Manila en route to deliver supplies to Filipino fishermen around Scarborough Shoal, a move that drew condemnation from the U.S.

China’s coast guard said four Philippine ships tried to enter what it described as its own waters around Scarborough Shoal, which Beijing calls Huangyan Island.

China submitted nautical charts to the United Nations earlier this month that it said support its claims to the waters, which an international tribunal in 2016 found to be long-established fishing grounds for fishermen of many nationalities.

After the charts were filed, a spokesman for the Philippine National Maritime Council said China’s claims were baseless and illegal.

In 2016, the tribunal ruled that China’s claim had no basis under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and that its blockade around Scarborough Shoal was a violation of international law.

Beijing has never acknowledged that decision.

Sovereignty over Scarborough Shoal was never established.

The Philippines and other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have spent years negotiating a code of conduct with Beijing for the strategic waterway, with some nations in the bloc insisting it be based on UNCLOS.

Exclusive economic zones give a coastal state jurisdiction over living and non-living resources in the water and on the ocean floor.