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China’s Education Ministry issued a safety warning for Chinese students in the Philippines after what it said were a series of criminal incidents targeting them. The brief warning Friday did not identify any specific incidents but told students to increase their safety awareness should they choose to study in the Philippines. The number of Chinese students in the country was not given but enrolments have fallen to just a few hundred in recent years, according to the Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post. Relations between the governments of China and the Philippines are particularly tense due to disputes over maritime claims in the South China Sea, which China claims almost in its entirety. China has used water cannons and other non-lethal shipboard deterrents to drive off Philippine fishing boats. Undersecretary Claire Castro of the Presidential Communications Office said on Friday that China has the right to issue such an advisory but underscored that the crime rate in the Philippines has been falling and “safety and security in the Philippines, we can say, have been improving as far as we are concerned.”