The Chinese are being pretty open about it and there's abundant footage. I do agree it's qualitatively different. The Chinese ations are also different in that they're being used to assert a territorial claim: China has been building artificial islands (by dumpin large piles of dirt) so it extend its territorial waters. So they always claim the other vessels are violating their boundaries. I presume this is being undertaken with a view to keeping the US and its proxies as far away from their coastal areas as possible in the future.

> I presume this is being undertaken with a view to keeping the US and its proxies as far away from their coastal areas as possible in the future.

Who can blame them!

PRC uses coast guard hulls, there's nothing being denied, these are generally framed as domestic maritime policing actions for PRC. Which is what makes the comparison generally stupid because PH / PCA ruling is not formal international law. UN/UNCLOS/ITLOS/ICJ has not recognized it, and PRC isn't party to optional arbituation clause, so ruling can't even apply to PRC. Ultimately PRC is simply doing domestic law enforcement in disputed maritime area with is not out of line with her UNCLOS obligations, i.e. until maritime delimitation formally settled at UNCLOS, there's nothing illegal about coastguard doing coastguard stuff in disputed area. This is not to mention up until a few years ago PRC ramming = while many other claimaints where flat out shooting. Like PRC coast guard ships were the last to get armed, some other claimaints already had heavy machine guns of lol missiles.

The flip side of this is US isn't signatory to UNCLOS so they can murder whoever they want on the highseas, and in the Hague I guess.

This was last month:

>The Philippine coastguard, in a statement, said a Chinese coastguard ship “fired its water cannon” at the BRP Datu Pagbuaya, a vessel belonging to Manila’s fisheries bureau, at 9:15am (01:15 GMT) on Sunday.

>Minutes later, the same vessel “deliberately rammed” the stern of the Philippine fisheries bureau vessel, causing “minor” damage to the boat.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10/12/philippines-accuse...

Coastguard firing a water cannon and ramming a ship causing minor damage. This is the same as a military drone causing total destruction of multiple ships?

No merely addressing the "all done through proxies" claim. And to counter the argument you are making, is an official government owned vessel the same as small random fishing boat and/or smuggler? At least in terms of reaction? To GPs point, multiple large countries have been moving the overton window here for a long time.

> This is the same as a military drone causing total destruction of multiple ships?

It's in a similar calibre of official disregard for international law.

I do agree there is a stark difference between using missiles and bombs on ships versus ramming and water cannons.

However, you're incorrect about it just being fishing vessels and third parties. There are tons of examples of Chinese coast guard and navy ships doing this, its not unmarked fishing vessels or other third parties doing it on behalf of the Chinese state.

Thanks for the correction, I'd be interested to read more about their navy doing this.

From 2025:

https://apnews.com/article/south-china-sea-thitu-island-phil...

From 2024:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/philippines-china-sea-conflict-...

Another incident in 2024

https://news.usni.org/2024/08/31/chinese-vessels-ram-surroun...

And the very violent Second Thomas Shoal incident:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_2024_Second_Thomas_Shoal_...

Whoever told you its just fishing vessels doing this are liars spreading misinformation. It has been official coast guard and naval vessels for years. This is very well documented.

A fishing vessel? [0]

[0]: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-11/chinese-boats-collide...