The Philippine government yesterday said that it has filed a diplomatic protest against Beijing after Chinese jets flew dangerously close and fired a volley of flares in the path of a Philippine air force patrol plane over a disputed shoal in the South China Sea.
The Chinese jets’ hostile actions against the Philippine military’s NC-212i light transport plane over the Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島) on Thursday last week was the first such aerial encounter since hostilities between Beijing and Manila in the busy seaway started to flare last year.
Philippine military chief General Romeo Brawner Jr did not report any injuries or damage, but condemned the Chinese actions, which he said could have had tragic consequences.
Photo: Reuters
“If the flares came into contact with our aircraft, these could have been blown into the propeller or the intake or burned our plane,” Brawner told reporters. “It was very dangerous.”
Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Teresita Daza said without elaborating that a diplomatic protest has been sent to China.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr over the weekend said that the actions by the Chinese air force jets were “unjustified, illegal and reckless.”
“We call on the government of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] to cease all forms of provocative and hazardous acts that could undermine the safety of Filipino military and civilian personnel in the waters or in the skies, destabilize regional peace, and erode the trust and confidence of the international community in the PRC,” a Philippine government task force overseeing the South China Sea said on Monday.
Despite the encounter, Philippine monitoring of its airspace would be intensified, the task force said.
The Southern Theater Command of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army on Saturday said that a Philippine air force plane “illegally” entered the airspace above the shoal, which China claims disrupted combat training activities.
The command sent jets and ships to identify, track and drive away the Philippine aircraft, it added.
The command warned the Philippines to “stop its infringement, provocation, distortion and hyping-up.”
China in 2013 announced a new air defense identification zone over the East China Sea that covers a chain of disputed islands also claimed by Japan. Beijing said then that all aircraft entering the zone must notify Chinese authorities and they would be subject to emergency military measures if they did not identify themselves or obey orders from Beijing.
Washington and its allies said the move was invalid and refused to recognize it.
Chinese officials had warned that Beijing could establish a similar air defense identification zone over the South China Sea if its sovereignty over the sea passage, a key global trade and security route, was threatened.
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