BEIJING - As a US military surveillance plane circled overhead, eight Chinese ships chased and briefly blocked four Philippine boats on a resupply mission to a tiny garrison in the hotly contested South China Sea.
The high seas cat-and-mouse game on Tuesday followed assurances from Chinese coast guard vessels patrolling the waters that Philippine boats would be allowed to deliver provisions to the remote outpost on Second Thomas Shoal "in the spirit of humanism".
But, the Chinese radio operator warned, the two Philippine coast guard vessels escorting the two boats carrying supplies for Filipino marines stationed on a crumbling navy ship grounded atop the reef should leave or "bear full responsibility for all the consequences".
A team of AFP journalists on board the BRP Cabra, one of the two Philippine Coast Guard vessels, watched as the Chinese vessels chased, blocked and corralled the four Philippine vessels.
One of the Chinese coast guard ships came within several metres of the Cabra.
Eventually, both supply boats reached the marooned BRP Sierra Madre and unloaded their cargo.
AFP was one of three media outlets given the rare opportunity to join the Philippine resupply mission to Second Thomas Shoal, less than three weeks after Chinese coast guard ships used water cannon against a similar resupply operation.
That incident, on August 5, prevented one of the Philippine resupply boats from unloading and sparked a diplomatic spat between Manila and Beijing.
There was widespread international criticism of the Chinese actions but Beijing defended its behaviour as "professional", and accused Manila of "illegal delivery of construction materials" to the grounded ship.
China claims almost the entire South China Sea, through which trillions of dollars in trade passes annually, and has ignored an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis.
The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei have overlapping claims to parts of the sea.