Aug 08,2023: China’s foreign ministry has repeated a call for the Philippines to remove a grounded World War II warship, which Manila uses as a makeshift military base, from a reef in the disputed South China Sea.
The renewed demand to tow the ship comes after the Philippines at the weekend accused China’s coastguard of firing water cannon at boats on a mission to resupply the Philippine garrison stationed on the grounded vessel.
The BRP Sierra Madre – deliberately grounded in the late 1990s in an effort to check the advance of China in the hotly contested waters – has long been a flashpoint between Manila and Beijing.
“China once again urges the Philippine side to immediately remove the warship from Second Thomas Shoal and restore it to its unoccupied state,” China’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
China, the ministry said, has communicated to the Philippines on the Second Thomas Shoal issue “many times” through diplomatic channels, but its goodwill and sincerity have been “ignored”.
“The Philippine side has repeatedly made clear promises to tow away the warship illegally ‘stranded’ on the reef,” a spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry said.
