Chinese Coast Guard rammed and boarded Philippine naval boats and confiscated their weapons in the South China Sea, injuring a Filipino soldier, the Philippine military said on Wednesday.
“The Chinese Coast Guard personnel illegally embarked on our RHIBS (rigid-hulled inflatable boats),” Rear Admiral Alfonso Torres told reporters, adding that Chinese boarders had some guns.
The incident is the latest in a series of escalating confrontations between Chinese and Philippine vessels in recent months off the disputed Second Thomas Shoal, where a tiny Philippine garrison is stationed on an old warship BRP Sierra Madre that was deliberately beached.
According to Torres, the Filipino sailors were under orders not to show their weapons in a confrontation, and one of them lost a thumb.
I’m guessing that policy is about to change.
According to China’s Coast Guard, Manila’s ship had deliberately and dangerously approached a Chinese vessel in an unprofessional manner, forcing it to take control measures, including “boarding inspections and forced evictions.”
Oh no! An inflatable boat has approached our large, well equipped vessel! Quickly, we must forcefully board this boat even though it is “dangerous and deliberate,” and chop off their fingers! Then we will puncture their boat with our swords, that will show them!
Can’t you read, they were being unprofessional!
You know those monster movies where two of the characters get in a heated argument, and in the background the horrifying creature they kind of knew about (that the stress of is part of what is leading to the argument), is coming into the frame, slowly and silently getting closer to them while they are distracted?
In this case it is labeled climate change
It’s also called a grey rhino event. A black swan event hits you out of nowhere. A grey rhino you see charging toward you but you decide to ignore the little dot on the horizon.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The incident is the latest in a series of escalating confrontations between Chinese and Philippine vessels in recent months off the disputed Second Thomas Shoal, where a tiny Philippine garrison is stationed on an old warship BRP Sierra Madre that was deliberately beached.
The Philippine boats were on a resupply mission Monday when they were attacked by the Chinese Coast Guard.
Philippines military chief General Romeo Brawner said the seized weapons were meant for Filipino troops manning the BRP Sierra Madre warship on the shoal.
“We fought back with our bare hands,” Brawner said, noting that the Filipino sailors were “outnumbered” by the eight-boat Chinese coast guard contingent.
According to Torres, the Filipino sailors were under orders not to show their weapons in a confrontation, and one of them lost a thumb.
China uses coast guard and other vessels to patrol the waters and has turned several reefs into militarized artificial islands.
The original article contains 397 words, the summary contains 152 words. Saved 62%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Who had WWIII on their 2024 bingo card?
2027
Ah, an optimist.
You gotta remember World Wars take a bit to warm up first. Skirmish here, escalation there, lots of sitting on thumbs for a while, and then everyone piles in after the rate of occupation starts to get out of hand and the aggressors show deft multi-tasking skills.
I had February 2017
