I was actually on Philippine television at the moment it happened on August 11. I was updating Morning Matters host Gretchen Ho about China’s unusual deployment of coast guard ships around the northern Batanes Islands and its likely relationship to President Ferdinand Marcos’s statement this month that the Philippines would be unable to stay out of any war over Taiwan.
That seemed important at the time. And it was—until a China Coast Guard corvette and a destroyer of the Chinese navy collided in the South China Sea while pursuing a Philippine Coast Guard ship.
By the time I returned to my hotel room after the interview, the astonishing early videos of the event were already circulating around Manila and beyond.
This incident, while highly consequential in its own right (and tragic for the unknown number of China Coast Guard sailors who almost certainly were casualties of the event), becomes even more important when we set it in context. Here are eight things you need to know.
1. This was a major escalation by China in an ongoing and increasingly high-stakes grey-zone war over the South China Sea. In past events, China had been content to let its paramilitary forces—its wolf-in-a-white-hull China Coast Guard and the little blue men of the maritime militia—take the lead in asserting China’s vast maritime claims.
It had largely kept its grey-hulled military vessels, such as the destroyer in the collision, back at a distance so as to be detached (yet still menacing) from the blocking, swarming, water-cannoning and ramming, which it has normalised as "law enforcement" measures over the past three years.
This was a bellicose message that Beijing is no longer tolerating Philippine vessels approaching the shoal at all.
2. This was the culmination of China’s 13-year takeover of Scarborough Shoal. The process that began in 2012 and accelerated starting in mid-2024 when it established a 45-kilometre to 55-kilometre exclusion zone around the shoal—a story that my organisation, SeaLight, first broke in May and that was confirmed by the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative in June.
3. This was a bellicose message that Beijing is no longer tolerating Philippine vessels approaching the shoal at all. This is despite the fact that Philippine fishing communities along the coast of Luzon have relied on the shoal for their livelihood for countless generations, and that a 2016 arbitral award—which China rejects but an increasing number of countries now affirm—unambiguously found that Beijing’s restrictions on this activity were unlawful.
4. This was a reflection of Beijing’s growing maritime militancy. The behaviour of the Chinese destroyer, in particular, illustrates this fact.
Not only did its captain, likely advised by the ship’s political officer, feel duty-bound to become directly involved in a law enforcement matter; he further continued the aggressive pursuit after the collision.
This means that he prioritised keeping a single 44-metre Philippine Coast Guard vessel away from an uninhabited shoal—one which, until recently, the Philippine Coast Guard was allowed to approach regularly—over providing mutual support to a China Coast Guard ship and crew that had just suffered catastrophic damage, including likely casualties and personnel overboard.
Much like a maritime Crimea in 2014, we have been watching a hostile imperial power carry out a maritime occupation of a smaller neighbour’s sovereign entitlements by means of paramilitary force.
5. This was a reminder that the Philippine Coast Guard routinely faces extreme peril with impressive courage and professionalism. We have seen countless incidents since early 2023 that have illustrated this fact, but it cannot be stated too often.
This may be the bravest coast guard on the planet today, and the scene in which BRP Teresa Magbanua offered medical support to the very ship that had just been trying to run down its compatriots was inspiring.
6. This was a testament to the plight of Philippines and the disintegration of the rules-based order that has kept the world relatively peaceful for the past 80 years. Much like a maritime Crimea in 2014, we have been watching a hostile imperial power carry out a maritime occupation of a smaller neighbour’s sovereign entitlements by means of paramilitary force, and still the world does not seem to have a good answer to how to counter grey-zone warfare.
7. This was an illustration of the absurdity of Beijing’s state propagandists, who for four surreal days continued to demand that the Philippines bear responsibility for the incident and even demanded "compensation". Yet at the same time they apparently did not have permission to admit why compensation might actually be owed.
It wasn’t until August 16 that the first articles in the Chinese Global Times newspaper appeared admitting to a collision (which of course occurred only due to the heroism and restraint of the valiant Chinese crew—or something).
8. This is a sobering reminder that China’s belligerence is bringing us perilously close to the brink.
It’s really not hard to imagine how this could have gone in quite a different direction. Had the destroyer struck the much smaller Philippine ship instead of its own, how many Filipinos would have died?
And if your coast guard ship is rammed by a destroyer while approaching a maritime feature that has essentially been stolen from you, does that constitute an armed attack?
This is a lightly edited version of an article originally published by SeaLight.
Article reprinted with permission from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute's analysis and commentary site The Strategist.