Holds exercises with 5 ASEAN nations during US-PH patrols in WPS
China hosted a joint military exercise with five members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations around the same the Philippines and the United States held joint patrols in the West Philippine Sea.
China’s joint military exercise, which began Monday at the southernGuangdong province, included Cambodian, Lao, Malaysian, Thai and Vietnamese forces.
Experts said the joint military exercises appear to be Beijing’s image-building show of force in the region.
The drills are focused on counterterrorism and maritime security, said China’s official Xinhua News Agency.
Meanwhile, Philippine Ambassador to the United States Jose Romualdez on Thursday said that Chinese President Xi Jinping wants the WPS issue resolved by the militaries of the two claimant countries.
Romualdez said this was conveyed during the meeting of President Marcos and Xi during the sidelines of the APEC Summit in San Francisco last week.
“I think in the end President Xi just simply said that we should just keep talking about it and from the read out I saw from our report isthat President Xi said that let’s just have our military talk about all these things, our militaries to resolve these things in the West Philippine Sea,” Romualdez said in an interview with CNN Philippines.
Romualdez, however, clarified in a separate interview that what he meant was for the militaries of both countries to try and bring down tensions in the area.
After the meeting in San Francisco, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said: “China carrying out construction activities on its own territory is a matter purely within the scope ofChina’s sovereignty and other countries have no right to point fingers at it.”
Romualdez admitted that Xi’s statement was not encouraging at all.
There is “no real clear sign that they’re going to be letting up any of these things that is happening,” he told CNN.
“It goes to show there is really a disconnect in everything,” he added.
While the joint military exercises was ongoing in Guandong, a Chinese vessel shadowed ships of the Philippines and the US that were conducting a joint maritime patrol in the WPS, Armed Forces of the Philippines chief Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. said.
“There was shadowing. So we monitored a Chinese vessel shadowing the joint maritime patrol but there are no aggressive actions by China and I hope that this continues,” Brawner said.
He said three ships—two Filipino and one US—were sailing together 30 nautical miles off the Malampaya gas field facility in northern Palawan when they spotted another vessel at 10:15 a.m.
Brawner said they observed a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy vessel that appeared to be shadowing them from a distance of 6.5 nautical miles.
“The joint Philippines-US is not meant to agitate China,” he said.
“Our only objective is to make sure that we have interoperability withour ally, the US, and also to impose that objective of making sure that we promote the rules based international order,” Brawner said.
Brawner described the joint patrols as “successful.”
“So far, we believe that the joint maritime and air patrols betweenthe Philippines and the US have been very successful in the sense that there are no untoward incidents,” he said.
The 3-day joint patrols that ended yesterday would allow the longtime treaty allies to learn each other’s maneuvers, AFP spokesperson Col. Medel Aguilar said.
“This is a way to assert our sovereign rights over our maritime zones at the same time, promoting the international convention in support of rules-based international order,” Aguilar said in a public briefing.
“China cannot claim sovereignty over these maritime features, over [these] maritime shoals because the law says, UNCLOS [says], it belongs to the EEZ of the Philippines and therefore, whatever they are doing there is illegal and against the law of nature,” he added.