The Philippines confronts Beijing’s ambassador after a Chinese navy ship was caught illegally lingering in the Southeast Asian nation’s waters, in the latest diplomatic row between the two countries.
Manila and Beijing are locked in a territorial dispute over the South China Sea, which Beijing claims almost its entirety, but the Philippines’ foreign ministry said the Chinese vessel entered its archipelagic waters without permission.
The vessel claimed it was exercising innocent passage as it reached the Cuyo islands off Palawan and Apo island off Mindoro.
China claims almost all of the South China Sea, through which trillions of dollars in trade pass annually, with competing claims from Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam.