Beijing:

A Philippine ship and a Chinese vessel collided near the Second Thomas Shoal in the disputed South China Sea on Monday, the Chinese Coast Guard said.

Known in Chinese as the Ren’ai Reef, the Second Thomas Shoal hosts a garrison of Philippine troops on a grounded navy vessel, the Sierra Madre, to assert Manila’s claims to the waters.

The area has seen a number of confrontations between Chinese and Philippine ships, often during Philippine attempts to supply the garrison.

The Shoal lies about 200 kilometres (120 miles) from the western Philippine island of Palawan and more than 1,000 kilometres from China’s nearest major landmass, Hainan island.

The Chinese coast guard said in a statement Monday that a Philippine resupply ship in the area had “ignored many solemn warnings from the Chinese side”.

It “approached the… Chinese vessel in an unprofessional way, resulting in a collision”, the statement said.

Beijing accused the ship of having “illegally broken into the sea near Ren’ai Reef in China’s Nansha Islands”.

“The Chinese Coast Guard took control measures against the Philippine ship in accordance with the law.”

Beijing claims almost the entirety of the South China Sea, brushing aside competing claims from several Southeast Asian nations including the Philippines and an international ruling that its stance has no legal basis.

China deploys coast guard and other boats to patrol the waters and has turned several reefs into militarised artificial islands. 

This month, Manila accused Chinese boats of illegally seizing food and medicine airdropped to the Philippine outpost at the Second Thomas Shoal.

It was the first time supplies had been seized, the military said.

Chinese personnel on the boats later dumped the items in the water, Philippine Navy spokesman for the West Philippine Sea Commodore Roy Vincent Trinidad said.

It was not clear if they belonged to the Chinese coast guard or navy, the military said.

China in response insisted the Sierra Madre was illegally grounded on the reef and urged the Philippines to “stop making trouble”.

‘Dangerous’ incursions 

On Saturday, new Chinese coast guard rules took effect under which it can detain foreigners for alleged trespassing in the disputed sea.

Manila has accused the Chinese coast guard of “barbaric and inhumane behaviour” against Philippine vessels, and President Ferdinand Marcos has called the new rules a “very worrisome” escalation.

China has defended its new coast guard rules. A foreign ministry spokesman said last month they were intended to “better uphold order at sea”.

Chinese Coast Guard vessels have used water cannons against Philippine boats multiple times in the contested waters.

There have also been collisions that injured Philippine troops.

The Group of Seven bloc on Friday criticised what it called “dangerous” incursions by China in the South China Sea.

Confrontations between China and the Philippines have raised fears of a wider conflict over the sea that could involve the United States and other allies.

Trillions of dollars in ship-borne trade passes through the South China Sea annually, and huge unexploited oil and gas deposits are believed to lie under its seabed, though estimates vary greatly.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

The Indian government has stated that it won’t enforce licensing or similar constraints on laptop and computer imports. Instead, it is establishing a mechanism to track the volume and source of these imports.

A statement from Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal was issued two weeks ago to address the misinformation about potential laptop import restrictions.

“On laptops, we are of the view that there are no restrictions as such. We are only saying that somebody who is importing these laptops has to be under close watch so that we can look at these imports. It is basically monitoring, which we are doing. It has nothing to do with restrictions as such,” Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal said.

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These remarks carry significance as the government had previously announced in August that products like laptops, tablets, and computers would require licensing, effective November 1.

Explaining further, Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) Santosh Kumar Sarangi said there will be an import management system, which will come into place on November 1.

In August, the government imposed import restrictions on laptops, computers (including tablet computers), microcomputers, large or mainframe computers, and certain data processing machines with a view to boosting domestic manufacturing and cutting imports from countries like China. Following this notification, the IT hardware industry raised concerns.

India already has an import monitoring system for certain products like steel, coal, and paper. The licensing conditions on imports were put in place on the grounds of security and to spur domestic manufacturing of these products.

According to a report by think-tank Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI), India is critically dependent on China for day-to-day use and industrial products like mobile phones, laptops, components, solar cell modules, and integrated circuits.

The government has taken several steps to boost domestic manufacturing of electronic items, such as rolling out the production-linked incentive scheme and increasing customs duties on the number of electronic components.

India imports about $7-8 billion worth of these goods every year.

The country has imported personal computers, including laptops, worth $5.33 billion in 2022-23, as against $7.37 billion in 2021-22.

Imports of certain data processing machines stood at $553 million in the last fiscal year, as against $583.8 million in 2021-22.

Similarly, imports of microcomputers and processors stood at $1.2 million in the last fiscal year, compared to $2.08 million in 2021-22.

In May, the government approved the Production-Linked Incentive Scheme 2.0 for IT Hardware with a budgetary outlay of ₹ 17,000 crore.

(With inputs from PTI)