China denied on Monday that one of its coastguard ships used force to retrieve a piece of a rocket floating in the ocean that was being towed by a Philippine vessel in the South China Sea.
A Philippine military commander said earlier the Chinese coastguard ship "forcefully retrieved" the object by cutting a line attaching it to a Philippine boat.
China's foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told a regular briefing that the object was debris from a rocket's payload fairing - casing that protects the nose-cone of a spacecraft - launched by China.
