US and Philippine forces yesterday sank a decommissioned China-made Philippine Navy ship during South China Sea war games simulating an attack on an enemy vessel, officials said.
The exercises are being held near the city of Laoag, about 400km south of Taiwan, amid a backdrop of increased confrontations between Philippine and Chinese vessels around South China Sea features claimed by Manila and Beijing.
The BRP Lake Caliraya, a small tanker decommissioned by the Philippine Navy in 2020, slowly dipped below the water after being struck by waves of anti-ship missiles, rockets, cannon fire and land-based artillery off Laoag, the officials said.
Photo: AP
A navy fast-attack craft and frigate, an air force fighter and helicopter, and land-based artillery from the Philippine military, as well as a US F-16 jet and an AC-130 gunship took part in the attack on the simulated enemy vessel, they said.
The participants had “a mission of trying to prevent an aggressor from landing on the Philippine soil,” Lieutenant-Colonel Omar al-Assaf, lead Philippine planner for yesterday’s activities, told reporters.
“The ability of both the US and the Filipino army and air force to work together to achieve this is extremely lethal,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Matt Cahill, commander of a US Army unit taking part in the war games.
He compared it to team sports in which “you don’t take the field with a new team right before the big game,” but must practice together beforehand.
The Philippine military earlier ruled out any symbolism in the choice of a China-made ship as target practice for the allies.
“There is no issue with that. The vessel has been used in the Philippines for a long, long time. So any attachment, if ever there is, doesn’t matter at all,” Philippine Navy Flag Officer-in-Command Vice Admiral Toribio Adaci said.
More than 16,700 Philippine and US troops are taking part in the annual military drills — dubbed Balikatan, or “shoulder to shoulder” — in multiple locations across the Asian archipelago.
Journalists watched yesterday’s event on video screens beamed toward a strip of sand dunes where, two days earlier, the two allies had also conducted a live-fire exercise with missiles and artillery to stop an imaginary invasion force landing on the Philippines’ north coast.
Japan has deployed long-range missiles in a southwestern region near China, the Japanese defense minister said yesterday, at a time when ties with Beijing are at their lowest in recent years. The missiles were installed in Kumamoto in the southern region of Kyushu, as Japan is attempting to shore up its military capacity as China steps up naval activity in the East China Sea. “Standoff defense capabilities enable us to counter the threat of enemy forces attempting to invade our country ... while ensuring the safety of our personnel,” Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. “This is an extremely important initiative for
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) today accepted an invitation from Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to lead a delegation to China next month, saying she hopes to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations and bring stability to the Taiwan Strait. “I am grateful and happy to accept this invitation,” Cheng said in a statement from the KMT chairperson’s office. Cheng said she hopes both sides can work together to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations, enhance exchange and cooperation, bring stability to the Taiwan Strait and improve people’s livelihoods. At today's news conference, Cheng said any efforts to
MORE POPULAR: Taiwan Pass sales increased by 59 percent during the first quarter compared with the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said The Tourism Administration yesterday said that it has streamlined the Taiwan Pass, with two versions available for purchase beginning today. The tourism agency has made the pass available to international tourists since 2024, allowing them to access the high-speed rail, Taiwan Railway Corp services, four MRT systems and four Taiwan Tourist Shuttles. Previously, five types of Taiwan Pass were available, but some tourists have said that the offerings were too complicated. The agency said only two types of Taiwan Pass would be available, starting from a three-day pass with the high-speed rail and a three-day pass with Taiwan Railway Corp. The former costs NT$2,800
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
RSS