🚨 Two Chinese Sailors Died Ramming Manila’s Boat. Beijing Hid It for a Year. On August 11, 2025, in broad daylight and calm seas off Scarborough Shoal, China Coast Guard (CCG) cutter 3104 slammed into the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Type 052D destroyer Guilin (hull 164) at high speed. Both were chasing the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) vessel BRP Suluan, a 44-meter Parola-class patrol vessel on a lawful resupply mission inside Manila’s exclusive economic zone. Philippine video captured the 3104’s bow crumpling ten meters inward. Four CCG sailors visible on that bow moments earlier were gone. Beijing said nothing. CCG spokesman Gan Yu called it “professional, regulated, and legitimate.” Censors scrubbed the footage from Weibo. Filipino radio calls offering medical aid went unanswered. Guilin kept chasing the Suluan before limping away for repairs at Yulin Naval Base. A year later, the cover-up cracked. On August 5, 2026, state broadcaster China National Radio’s (CNR) military channel posthumously named four “martyrs” as “Loyal Guardians of the China Armed Police”. The Ministry of Veterans Affairs martyr database confirms two, Yi Xinyu (born 2003) and Cheng Long (born 2000), were killed on August 11, 2025 during “frontline rights protection operations” in the South China Sea. Beijing’s own paperwork betrayed the story it spent a year burying. This was not seamanship. Since 2018, the CCG has reported through the People’s Armed Police (PAP) to the Central Military Commission (CMC). Two ships coordinating a high-speed block against a civilian resupply run is an ordered operation, not a rogue captain. The world responded. Then-US Ambassador MaryKay Carlson condemned the “reckless action.” Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and the European Union raised alarm. Two days later, USS Higgins and USS Cincinnati sailed Scarborough Shoal on a freedom of navigation operation. Beijing killed two of its own to intimidate a neighbor, then hid the bodies until its own paperwork told on it. ACI — Aric Chen | Insights