China’s state media has released footage it says shows the People’s Liberation Army Navy challenging a U.S. warship near a contested South China Sea feature.
On the morning of August 13, the USS Higgins conducted a so-called freedom-of-navigation operation (FONOP) near Scarborough Shoal, a flashpoint in China’s dispute with U.S. treaty ally the Philippines. Beijing said its forces “expelled” the Arleigh Burke–class destroyer—a claim the U.S. Seventh Fleet dismissed as “false.”
Why It Matters
Since 1979, the U.S. Navy has routinely sent ships and aircraft to challenge what Washington deems excessive maritime claims.
Scarborough Shoal lies roughly 140 miles west of the main Philippine island of Luzon, well within the the country’s maritime zone, and about 700 miles from China’s Hainan Island. Beijing asserts sovereignty over the uninhabited atoll, as it does most of the South China Sea.
Newsweek has reached out to the Chinese defense ministry and Philippine coast guard with a written request for commment.
What To Know
Media Unlocked, a social media brand operated by the state-run China Daily, released footage that appears to show the encounter.
A Chinese ship, identifying itself as the Type 054A frigate Liuzhou (573), radioed that the USS Higgins had “illegally entered the territorial waters of Huangyan Island” (China’s name for Scarborough Shoal) and ordered it to “alter your course and leave immediately.”
Media Unlocked said the Higgins remained in “territorial waters” for about 90 minutes before the PLA Navy “drove it out.”
“Same old U.S. playbook: provoke, then retreat,” Media Unlocked wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
The encounter took place two days after a Chinese navy destroyer and coast guard ship collided while attempting to drive away a smaller Philippine coast guard cutter near Scarborough Shoal. The bow of the Chinese coast guard vessel was severely damaged.
The episode, considered highly embarrassing for Beijing, was the latest in a series of dramatic confrontations between China and the Philippines since 2023.
Under international law, a territorial sea extends 12 nautical miles (about 13.8 miles) from coastlines and high-tide features such as Scarborough Shoal.
In 2016, an international arbitral tribunal rejected China’s sweeping South China Sea claims but did not rule on sovereignty over the shoal, though it recognized its importance as a traditional fishing ground for both Filipino and Chinese fishing vessels.
What People Are Saying
Commander Matthew Comer, Indo-Pacific Command spokesperson, told Newsweek: “China’s statement about this mission is false. USS Higgins (DDG 76) conducted this FONOP in accordance with international law and then continued on to conduct normal operations.
“The United States is defending its right to fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows, as USS Higgins did here. Nothing China says otherwise will deter us.”
Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C., previously told Newsweek that China firmly opposes “willful trespassing” and “any country conducting unlawful provocations in the name of ‘freedom of navigation’ to harm the sovereignty and security of coastal countries and undermine regional peace and stability.”
What’s Next
China is expected continue patrols and other activities within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone. Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has vowed not to yield “one square inch” of Manila-claimed waters.
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