Videos show Chinese firing water cannon, ramming US ally's boats

Footage has emerged of China's coast guard deploying a water cannon against a Philippine supply mission on Sunday in a contested part of the South China Sea, with each side blaming the other for a collision that took place during the standoff.

Videos released by the Philippine Coast Guard showed a convoy en route to Second Thomas Shoal, part of the disputed Spratly Islands archipelago, over which China claims sovereignty, as it does with most of the energy-rich sea.

Second Thomas Shoal is uninhabited but for a small contingent of Philippine marines stationed on the BRP Sierra Madre, a rusting warship Manila ran aground there in 1999 to stake its claim to the low-tide atoll, which lies within the country's exclusive economic zone.