CHINA has hailed as “martyrs” two Chinese coast guard sailors who were killed, presumably, during a confrontation with a Philippine vessel in the West Philippine Sea almost a year to the day.
The sailors sacrificed their lives during a “rights defense operation” on Aug. 11, 2025, according to the China Martyrs Network, as quoted by Agence France-Presse.
No details were divulged about the operation. But on the same day, a China Coast Guard cutter CCG 3104 collided with a Chinese warship while pursuing the Philippine Coast Guard patrol boat BRP Suluan near Bajo de Masinloc.
The Suluan was resupplying Filipino fishermen with fuel and provisions when the CCG 3104 and the Chinese Navy’s Guilin approached.
The Chinese ships were part of the blockading force that rings Bajo de Masinloc to assert Beijing’s control over the rich fishing grounds.
Following established Chinese harassment tactics, the CCG 3104 began to maneuver dangerously near the Suluan. When the Suluan made a run for it, the Chinese vessels gave chase.
As it tried to hem in the Philippine boat, CCG 3104 slammed into the Guilin, sustaining heavy damage to its bow.
The Suluan even asked the Chinese ships if they needed assistance, but the offer was waved off.
China never fully acknowledged the tragicomic incident, although the Philippine Coast Guard fully documented it on video recordings.
Instead, it continues to justify its illegal and coercive presence in Philippine waters.
Blockading is only one of the strategies in its arsenal. China has used water cannons and blinding laser light, deployed swarms of maritime militia vessels, and more recently, declared Bajo de Masinloc an exclusive “nature reserve.”
It is trying to reinforce its position through disinformation by flipping narratives to defend its illegal actions.
The declaration of two Chinese sailors as martyrs is an obvious attempt at churning out propaganda aimed at the local populace.
Bajo de Masinloc is the original flash point that prompted the Philippines to challenge China’s expansive aspirations in the South China Sea.
In 2012, several Chinese fishing boats anchored inside the shoal’s lagoon in a clear breach of Philippine territorial laws. When the Philippine Navy’s BRP Gregorio del Pilar was sent to investigate, it found illegally collected corals, giant clams and live sharks in one of the Chinese boats. A Navy team that tried to arrest the Chinese fishermen was blocked by two Chinese maritime surveillance ships.
To prevent the incident from escalating, ships from the Philippine Coast Guard and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources took over from the Gregorio del Pilar.
Beijing dispatched its largest patrol ship to reinforce the Chinese ships, and the long standoff began.
In 2013, the government of President Benigno Aquino III filed a case with the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague “to clearly establish the sovereign rights and jurisdiction of the Philippines over its maritime entitlements in the West Philippine Sea.”
It claimed that China’s “nine-dash line” doctrine, asserting sovereign rights over about 85 percent of the South China Sea, “has interfered with the rights of the Philippines” under Unclos, or the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
In 2016, an arbitral tribunal issued a landmark ruling affirming the Philippines’ sovereign rights over the West Philippine Sea — which covers the country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) — and threw out China’s “nine-dash line” claim as having no legal basis.
To this day, China continues to reject the ruling, despite its being cited by the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (Itlos) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in their decisions.
The Asian superpower has also intensified its campaign to misrepresent and disguise its intentions in the West Philippine Sea.Last July, the state-run China Daily posted a video that disparaged Filipinos as monkeys
The objective is clear: Weaken the Philippines’ resolve to uphold territorial integrity.
All the more reason for the country to stand its ground and link up with like-minded nations within Asean and the international community to counter what a political observer described as China’s attempt to “spread selective disinformation of insidious threat actors who pursue their malign interests.”
