What happened in the waters near China's Ren'ai Reef in the South China Sea on Sunday morning indicates the extent to which Manila is willing to act as a piece in Washington's China-containment strategy in the Asia-Pacific.

The rights and wrongs of the incident are crystal-clear. The Philippine vessels trespassed into waters adjacent to the Ren'ai Reef of China's Nansha Islands without authorization to transport construction materials to the dilapidated ship Manila intentionally grounded on the reef in 1999, with the purpose of creating a fait accompli that the reef belongs to the Philippines.

China Coast Guard vessels stopped the Philippine vessels in accordance with the law after repeated warnings failed. In the process, the Philippine vessels deliberately collided with the vessels of the CCG, in an unprofessional and dangerous manner, to escalate the tension on the spot while pretending to be the victims.

As the CCG spokesperson said on Sunday, what the Philippine side has done seriously violates the international rules for preventing collisions at sea and threatens the navigation safety of Chinese ships. The Philippines is fully responsible for the incident.

The collisions happened shortly after the United States, along with Japan, provided new vessels to the Philippines to help the latter to defend "its sovereignty and territorial integrity". Although Manila knows that is only a pretext for the US to cover its true motives of turning the Philippines into a piece on its chess board of geopolitical games, it seems to be ready to do the US' bidding at the cost of the Philippines' national interests and security.

Manila should know that no matter how long its ship is grounded on the reef — the disintegration of the World War II ship will only be a matter of time — it does not make the Chinese reef and adjacent waters the Philippines'. The only fait accompli it has created over the past 24 years is that the whole world can see how low Manila is willing to stoop to try and steal other countries' territory.

The Chinese side has every reason to take resolute actions to remove the ship from the reef by force, or set Manila a deadline to do it itself. The reason why it has refrained from doing so is that Beijing always bears in mind the bigger picture of Sino-Philippine relations, believing Manila's provocative speculating should not be allowed to impact the overall development of bilateral ties.

The Philippines' actions violate China's sovereignty and territorial integrity, the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea and its own commitments. The CCG will continue to carry out its law enforcement actions in waters under China's jurisdiction, and resolutely safeguard China's core interests. Manila should carefully weigh the potential gains and losses of its US-emboldened provocations, and avoid embroiling itself in Washington's geopolitical games.

The world has already paid too high a cost for the lesson that all disputes between countries should be and can only be settled through dialogue and negotiations, rather than confrontation and conflict.