MANILA: President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said on Monday that Manila will not use offensive equipment in the disputed South China Sea, after China’s coast guard used high-pressure water cannon on Philippine vessels last week.

The Philippines and China have had several confrontations in the resource-rich area, where Beijing has used water cannon against Filipino vessels in incidents Manila has described as harassment and dangerous.

The latest in a string of maritime clashes occurred on April 30 as tensions continued to rise in the vital waterway that Beijing claims almost in its entirety despite a 2016 international arbitration ruling that rejected its assertion.

“What we are doing is defending our sovereign rights and our sovereignty in the West Philippine Sea. And we have no intention of attacking anyone with water cannons or any other such offensive (weapons),” Marcos said Monday.

“We will not follow the Chinese coast guard and the Chinese vessels down that road because it is not the mission of the navy (or) our coast guard to start or to increase tensions … Their mission is precisely the opposite, it’s to lower tensions.”

Philippine vessels have been regularly targeted by Chinese ships in areas of the South China Sea that are internationally recognized as belonging to the Philippines, which Manila calls the West Philippine Sea.

The Philippines’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs last Thursday summoned Zhou Zhiyong, China’s deputy chief of mission, after the incident left a Philippine coast guard vessel and another government boat damaged.

It was the 20th protest Manila has made against Beijing’s conduct in the South China Sea this year alone, while more than 150 diplomatic complaints have been made over the past two years.

Marcos said the Philippines will continue to respond to South China Sea incidents through diplomatic means.

Marcos’s statement comes days after the defense ministers of the Philippines, the US, Japan and Australia met in Hawaii and issued a joint statement on their strong objections to the “dangerous and destabilizing conduct” of China in the South China Sea.