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A Chinese ship ran aground in stormy weather in shallow waters off a Philippines-occupied island in the disputed South China Sea, prompting Filipino forces to go on alert, Philippine military officials said Sunday. When Filipino forces assessed that the Chinese fishing vessel appeared to have run aground in the shallows east of Thitu Island on Saturday because of bad weather, Philippine military and coast guard personnel deployed to provide help but later saw that the ship had been extricated, regional navy spokesperson Ellaine Rose Collado said. No other details were immediately available, including if there were injuries among the crewmembers or if the ship was damaged, Collado said. Confrontations have spiked between Chinese and Philippine coast guard and navy ships in the disputed waters in recent years. "The alertness of our troops is always there, Col Xerxes Trinidad of the Armed Forces of the Philippines told reporters. But when they saw that a probable accident had happened
Japan lodged a formal protest via China's embassy against what it called an incursion by a Chinese survey ship into its territorial waters Saturday, the Japanese foreign ministry said. The ministry expressed strong concern after the ship was spotted near Kagoshima Prefecture, southwestern Japan, early in the morning. The Chinese ship, confirmed in territorial waters at 6 am local time, left shortly before 8 am, according to Japan's Defence Ministry, adding it was monitored by a Japanese military vessel and plane. Recently, China's increasingly assertive activity around Japanese waters and airspace has caused unease among Japanese defence officials, also concerned about the growing military cooperation between the Chinese and Russian air forces. This follows Tokyo's protest after a Chinese military aircraft briefly entered Japan'ssouthwestern airspace on Monday. It was the first time the Japanese Self Defence Force detected a Chinese military aircraft in Japan's airspace. Chinese .