Philippines Responds After China Tests US Defense Treaty Resolve

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said his country is alarmed after the Chinese coast guard violently confronted a Philippine supply convoy in the South China Sea, allegedly leaving several crew members injured.

However, Marcos said that now is not the time to invoke the Southeast Asian country's defense treaty with Washington.

The latest flare up in the long-running territorial feud between Beijing and Manila occurred Tuesday during the latest mission to bring fresh supplies and troops to a Philippine military outpost at Second Thomas Shoal , which lies within the Philippines' internationally recognized exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

Seeking to deter the mission to the shoal, which China considers illegal, a blockading force of Chinese ships moved to intercept the convoy. Two collisions ensued, with the Chinese coast guard also training its water cannons on a supply boat. Manila said four of the vessel's crew received minor injuries during the confrontation.

Article four of the U.S.-Philippine Mutual Defense treaty states that each country will come to the other's aid in the event of an attack. The U.S. State Department issued a statement Tuesday reaffirming that the pact extends to anywhere in the South China Sea .

However, it is unclear what would constitute an attack in the current context, as Chinese maritime forces operate in the gray zone between peace and war.

China does not appear to be switching gears with a "vertical escalation." But it has clearly intensified its gray zone approach, for example deploying "water cannon at close range at the resupply boat," Collin Koh, a maritime security expert with Singapore's Nanyang Technological University, told Newsweek Wednesday.

"Given earlier precedent of the treaty not being invoked by either Manila or Washington late last year when a water cannon attack by People's Republic of China forces led to injuries, I believe Beijing senses impunity to keep doing the same," he added.

Until the U.S. and its ally revisit their treaty, Koh predicted more serious clashes in the future because of intransigence from an emboldened Beijing and Manila under Marcos, who has sworn to never yield "one inch" of Philippine territory.

Newsweek reached out to the U.S. State Department for comment via written statement outside of office hours.

"I do not think that it is a time or the reason to invoke the Mutual Defense Treaty," Marcos said Wednesday on the sidelines of an Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Melbourne, Australia. "However, we continue to view with great alarm this continuing dangerous maneuvers and dangerous actions that are being done against our seamen, our coast guard."

"We cannot view this in any way but the most serious way," the president said, adding the Philippines will continue raising objections and pursuing communication with China in hopes of putting an end to incidents like that on Tuesday.

In a recent interview aired by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Marcos said he had proposed to his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping a direct line of leader-to-leader communication.

Marcos acknowledged no such hot line is currently in place.

"China once again urges the Philippines to stop infringement and provocation, and refrain from taking any action that may complicate the situation at sea," Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at a press conference Tuesday.

Marcos said last year that the U.S.-Philippine defense treaty should "evolve," saying the current landscape in the region is totally different from when the pact was signed seven decades ago.