Chinese air force operations in South China Sea waters that both China and the Philippines claim were denounced by Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Sunday, branding the operations “unjustified, illegal, and reckless.”
The Philippines has complained of risky acts by Chinese aircraft in the first incident since Marcos assumed office in 2022. A day earlier, Beijing and Manila accused each other of interfering with their forces’ operations in Scarborough Shoal. Previously, coast guard or navy vessels had been part in the actions. When two Chinese aircraft dropped flares in the route of a Philippine aircraft on Thursday when it was conducting a regular patrol around the shoal, the Philippine military denounced the “dangerous and provocative actions.” The Chinese military’s Southern Theater Command countered that the Philippines had disrupted its training, accusing Manila of “illegally intruding” into its airspace.
On Sunday, Marcos urged China to act responsibly both in the seas and in the skies. “We have hardly started to calm the waters, and it is already worrying that there could be instability in our airspace,” Marcos said in a statement posted by the Presidential Communications Office on the social media platform X. The Chinese embassy in Manila did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The Scarborough Shoal is one of Asia’s most contested maritime features and a flashpoint for flare-ups over sovereignty and fishing rights.
Chester Cabalza, president of the Manila-based think tank International Development and Security Cooperation, said China’s actions were a “show of force” in response to Manila’s participation in multi-nation drills that promote freedom of navigation and overflight. “After a series of gray zone tactics at sea, we may probably see dog fights up in the sky if China continues its growing antagonism in the Philippines’ air and defence zones,” Cabalza said. Beijing claims almost all of the South China Sea, a conduit for more than $3 trillion of annual shipborne commerce, including parts claimed by the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei.
China rejects a 2016 ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague that Beijing’s expansive claims had no basis under international law.
Source: Here