South China Sea: Philippines’ Marcos Jnr warns risk of armed conflict ‘is much higher now than before’

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr has warned the risk of an armed conflict between his country and Beijing in the disputed South China Sea “is much higher now than it was before”, as he urged Chinese leader Xi Jinping to expedite the setting up of a hotline to help limit rising tensions.

“We worry in the Philippines because it could come from, not a strategic decision by anyone saying, ‘OK, we’re going to war,’ but just by some servicemen making a mistake, or some action that’s misunderstood,” Marcos Jnr said on the sidelines of the three-day Asean-Australia special summit in Melbourne that ended earlier this week.

“That’s why the ongoing attempt is always to try and lower the temperature down [when] the rhetoric is up.”

Marcos Jnr also pushed for a faster roll-out of a direct communication line with Xi to peacefully resolve the maritime discord that has seen the Philippines frequently accusing the Chinese coastguard of confronting its ships in the hotly contested sea, including firing water cannons at them.

In the latest incident on Tuesday, Manila said China’s coastguard vessels caused two collisions with Philippine boats and water cannoned one of them during a resupply mission near Second Thomas Shoal.

China said it “took control measures” against Philippine ships’ “illegal intrusion” into its waters.

During his meeting with Xi in Beijing in January last year, Marcos Jnr said he had proposed “a kind of hotline between us, so that if there is a message that needs to be sent from one president to another, we can be assured that that message will reach them”.

When asked if the plan had materialised, he said: “Not yet, I’m afraid.”

Marcos Jnr added the slow progress on the hotline would not deter the country from