China denied on Monday that one among its coastguard ships used pressure to retrieve a bit of a rocket floating within the ocean that was being towed by a Philippine vessel within the South China Sea.

A Philippine army commander mentioned earlier the Chinese language coastguard ship “forcefully retrieved” the article by chopping a line attaching it to a Philippine boat.

China’s overseas ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning advised an everyday briefing that the article was particles from a rocket’s payload fairing – casing that protects the nose-cone of a spacecraft – launched by China.

“Individuals from the Philippines facet salvaged and towed the floating object first. After either side had a pleasant negotiation on the scene, the Philippines handed over the floating object to us,” Mao mentioned.

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“It was not a scenario by which we waylaid and grabbed the article,” Mao mentioned.

Vice Admiral Alberto Carlos, commander of the Philippine Western Command, mentioned in a press release authorities despatched a vessel to look at the article after it was noticed early on Sunday about 800 yards (730 metres) west of Thitu island

The crew tied the article to their boat and began towing it earlier than the Chinese language vessel approached and blocked their course twice earlier than deploying an inflatable boat that minimize the tow line, then took the article again to the coastguard ship, Carlos mentioned.

The incident occurred as U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris arrived within the Philippines on Sunday for talks geared toward reviving ties with the Asian ally that’s central to U.S. efforts to counter China’s more and more assertive insurance policies in the direction of Taiwan.

Harris, whose three-day journey features a cease on Palawan, an island on the sting of the South China Sea, will even reaffirm U.S. assist for a 2016 worldwide tribunal ruling that invalidated China’s expansive declare within the disputed waterway, a senior U.S. official mentioned.