Secretary of State Antony Blinken is pledging U.S. protection for the Philippines after an aggressive move from China that Manila deems “a verbal threat of war,” wasting little time in sending a warning to a top adversary early in the Biden administration.

America’s new top diplomat closed ranks with the Philippines’s foreign secretary, Teodoro Locsin Jr., on the day that his Philippine counterpart accused Beijing of threatening a shooting conflict with the island nation. Locsin issued that condemnation in a protest of the communist regime’s thinly veiled threat that the Chinese Coast Guard’s heavily armed fleet could use lethal force against neighbors in territorial disputes — raising the likelihood of a major clash between Beijing and a U.S. ally.