The Philippine Navy called maneuvers carried out by China's air force last week near a disputed shoal in the South China Sea "coercive, aggressive and deceptive." This was reported by the newspaper "The Straits Times". Speaking at a press conference, Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad said Chinese maneuvers “are senseless” in the international arena, warning that such moves increase the risk of untoward incidents in the region. According to reports from the Manila military, on August 8, two Chinese Air Force planes carried out a "dangerous maneuver" and fired flares into the path of a Philippine Air Force turboprop over Scarborough Shoal. Manila, which announced its intention to forward a diplomatic protest to Beijing, said that China's actions had endangered the lives of its crew, but that the patrol plane returned safely to base.
The maneuvers of the Chinese Air Force were also strongly contested by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who denounced "illegal and reckless" actions. The Chinese actions were "unjustified, illegal and reckless, especially since the PAF (Philippine Air Force) aircraft was carrying out a routine maritime security operation in Philippine sovereign airspace," Marcos said in a statement , in which he said he was “concerned about possible instability in our airspace.” China, for its part, defended the operations by saying it had "organised naval and air forces to legally remove" the Philippine plane, following "repeated warnings".
“We sternly warn the Philippines to immediately stop violations, provocations, distortions and exaggerations,” reads a note from the Southern Theater Command of the People's Liberation Army, which reiterates that “China has indisputable sovereignty over the Huangyan Island (where Scarborough Shoal is located) and adjacent waters." The incident follows a series of increasingly tense clashes between Manila and Beijing, which claims most of the South China Sea and seized the shoal after a standoff with the Philippines in 2012. In June the Philippine military said that one of its sailors lost a thumb in a collision off the Second Thomas Shoal in another area of the South China Sea, when the Chinese coast guard also confiscated or destroyed Philippine equipment, including some weapons.
Beijing, for its part, blames the escalation on Manila and maintains that its actions to protect its claims are legal and proportionate. After the second clash in Second Thomas Shoal, the two countries agreed on an “interim agreement” to resupply Philippine troops aboard a warship stranded on the reef and also to increase the number of communication lines to resolve disputes in the maritime area. The Scarborough shoal is at the center of a dispute between China, Taiwan and the Philippines. It is located 240 kilometers west of the island of Luzon, the largest in the Philippines, and almost nine hundred kilometers from the Chinese island province of Hainan. Last September, China installed a three hundred meter long floating barrier at its entrance, with the aim of preventing access to Philippine fishing boats.
The structure was subsequently removed by Manila authorities, who reported violations of the ruling issued in 2016 by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. The court verdict, called "waste paper" by China, disputes its territorial claims in the South China Sea and says Beijing has no "historical rights" to the waters in question. In May, the Philippines accused Chinese fishermen of destroying Scarborough's ecological environment through cyanide fishing, harvesting giant clams and devastating coral reefs. Two months later China strongly denied the allegations. Based on analyzes conducted by government institutes and research centers nationwide, Beijing stated that the waters around the shoal have low levels of heavy metals, pollutants and hydrocarbons, which overall provide "excellent environmental quality". .
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