ASEAN Beat | Diplomacy | Southeast Asia

Philippine, Chinese Foreign Ministers Exchange Protests Over South China Sea Clash

Both nations have accused the other for instigating the incident at Second Thomas Shoal, which has overshadowed this week’s ASEAN meetings in Manila.

Philippine Foreign Secretary Ma. Theresa Lazaro and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi shake hands during a meeting in Manila, Philippines, July 22, 2026.

The foreign ministers of the Philippines and China yesterday exchanged “strong” protests over an encounter between the two countries’ ‌vessels at a disputed shoal in the South China Sea earlier this week.

In a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the sidelines of the 59th ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Manila, Foreign Secretary Ma. Theresa Lazaro reiterated the ​protest over China Coast Guard (CCG)’s “unacceptable actions against Filipino personnel,” she said in a post on X.

The incident in question took place on Monday at Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratly Islands, during a confrontation between Philippine marines and personnel from the CCG. The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) claimed that a Philippine marine sustained a significant head injury after being struck with a baton by a CCG sailor.

According to the AFP, the confrontation took place after a CCG boat carrying eight personnel came within close range of the BRP Sierra Madre, a grounded Philippine warship that serves as the Philippines’ outpost on the shoal. Two Philippine dinghies then attempted “calmly and non-confrontationally” to drive it away, and a melee ensued. China disputed this claim, asserting that the Philippines side was to blame for instigating the incident and ramming the CCG boat.

During her meeting with Wang, Lazaro “conveyed the Philippines’s consistent and principled positions on the South China Sea, and raised concerns over actions that have infringed on the maritime rights and entitlements, including incidents affecting the safety of Filipino personnel,” the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said in a statement. “The Philippines emphasized the need to exercise restraint, avoid actions that increase tensions, and resolve disputes peacefully in accordance with international law.”

Lazaro also registered her protest over a recent AI-generated video that depicted the Philippines as a karaoke-singing monkey. The 58-second video, which was posted online by the state-controlled China Daily on July 10, was “deeply offensive, distressing, and unacceptable,” the DFA paraphrased her as saying.

The video shows a timid monkey in Filipino traditional dress being forced by two faceless figures representing the United States and Japan to parrot the arbitral award that was handed down by a tribunal in The Hague in 2016.

While Chinese Ambassador Jing Quan attempted to distance his government from the China Daily video, Lazaro “emphasized that disagreements over legal and political issues do not justify resorting to disturbing imagery, drawing a firm line at the depiction of Filipinos as monkeys,” the DFA stated.

China’s Foreign Ministry later said that Wang registered his own “strong protest” over the incident at Second Thomas Shoal and urged the........

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