THE United States will transfer some $42 million worth of sensors, radar and communications equipment to help track maritime activity and guard its waters, particularly the West Philippine Sea, according to US Ambassador to the Philippines Philip Goldberg.
In a television interview, Goldberg said Washington is willing to provide the Philippines additional capability to put sensors on ships and put an aerostat blimp in the air to see into the maritime space.
The US ambassador said that both the US and the Philippines had earlier agreed to set up a system for “secure and classified communications” as part of a five-year, $425-million security initiative by Washington in Southeast Asia.
The Philippines, which is an old ally of the US, will receive some $120 million in US military aid this year, the largest sum since 2000 when the American military returned to the Philippines for training and exercises after an eight-year hiatus, Goldberg said in an interview with CNN Philippines.
When asked about the end of the military exercises, dubbed Balikatan 2016, the US official described the exercises as a good time to show Beijing that the US was serious about freedom of navigation and that no decision has been made about the ownership of the disputed territories in the South China Sea.
“The military exercises was something to keep in mind during the whole issue of disputed territories, he said, adding “much of what we’re doing is what we always do in supporting the Philippines—our ally—helping the Philippines as it goes about building and modernizing its defense.”
China has been expanding its presence on its seven artificial islands in the Spratly archipelago and the latest was landing a military plane for the first time on Fiery Cross (Kagitingan) Reef last Sunday.
China’s defense ministry said on Monday an air force plane landed on Fiery Cross reef in the Spratlys archipelago on Sunday to evacuate sick workers.
China claims nearly all of the strategically vital sea, even waters close to its Southeast Asian neighbors, and has created artificial islands in an effort to assert its claims.
It has significantly expanded Fiery Cross, which is also claimed by Vietnam and the Philippines, drawing international criticism.
In 2014, China began work on a 3,000-metre (10,000 foot) runway on the reef, which is around 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from its island province of Hainan.
Beijing in January carried out several of what it called civilian flights to Fiery Cross, enraging Hanoi.
“On the Chinese territory, this kind of thing is not surprising at all,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a regular briefing. “It is a good tradition of the People’s Liberation Army to provide a necessary assistance to Chinese people in need.”
This weekend’s flight came just days after US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter Friday visited a warship close to flashpoint waters, after announcing joint naval patrols with the Philippines.
On the day of Carter’s trip, Beijing said that one of its top military officials had visited a South China Sea island.
Fan Changlong, vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, observed building work, the defence ministry said, without giving a precise date or location for the visit.