“We’re making full use of diplomatic processes…available to us. That includes summoning the Chinese ambassador, which we did this morning,” foreign ministry spokesman Teresita Daza told reporters.

The Philippines and China have traded blame over yesterday’s incidents near the Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratly Islands.

The two collisions happened during a routine Philippine resupply mission to Filipino troops stationed on a crumbling navy vessel grounded on the shoal to assert Manila’s territorial claims.

A Philippine government task force said yesterday that the “dangerous blocking manoeuvers of China Coast Guard vessel 5203 caused it to collide with the Armed Forces of the Philippines-contracted indigenous resupply boat” about 25km from the shoal.

China said the “slight collision” happened after the resupply boat ignored “multiple warnings and deliberately passed through law enforcement in an unprofessional and dangerous manner”, state broadcaster CCTV reported yesterday, citing the foreign ministry.

In another incident, a Philippine coast guard vessel escorting the routine resupply mission was “bumped” by what the Philippine task force described as a “Chinese Maritime Militia vessel”.

China, however, accused the Philippine boat of “deliberately” stirring up trouble by reversing in a “premeditated manner” into a Chinese fishing vessel.