The Philippines conducted joint maritime drills with forces from Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and the United States on Saturday, Armed Forces of the Philippines chief of staff Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. said.
Brawner said the five-country drills – officially called the Multilateral Maritime Cooperative Activity – demonstrated “a collective commitment to strengthen regional and international cooperation in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
“The naval and air force units of participating nations will operate together enhancing cooperation and interoperability between our armed forces. The activity will be conducted in a manner consistent with international law and with due regard to the safety of navigation and the rights and interests of other States,” he said.
The AFP did not provide further details on the military assets deployed and location except that it was within the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone.
This developed as Chinese naval and air forces conducted patrols around Bajo de Masinloc, also known as Scarborough Shoal, in the West Philippine Sea, coinciding with the multilateral exercises.
Beijing claims almost the entire South China Sea, brushing off rival claims of several Southeast Asian countries, the Philippines among them, and an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis.
Its claims include the waters around Scarborough Shoal – which Beijing seized from Manila in 2012 – where the Chinese military’s Southern Theater Command said Saturday it held air and sea patrols.
The triangular chain of reefs and rocks is 240 kilometers west of Luzon and nearly 900 kilometers from the nearest major Chinese land mass of Hainan.
Beijing said the training activities around the shoal included “reconnaissance, early warning, and air-sea patrols.”
“Certain countries outside the region are stirring up trouble in the South China Sea, creating instability in the region,” the Southern Theater Command said in a statement.
For its part, Japan’s defense ministry said in a statement Saturday the joint drills involving the five countries took place in the South China Sea.
Its maritime destroyer Sazanami participated in the exercises, the ministry said.
In its own statement, the United States said the maritime exercises conducted with its allies demonstrated “a collective commitment to strengthen regional and international cooperation in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
Australia’s defense department separately confirmed Saturday that the HMAS Sydney and a Royal Australian Air Force P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft were participating in exercises aimed at “upholding the right to freedom of navigation and overflight.”
Tensions between China and the Philippines have flared in the past few months during a series of confrontations in the waters around Ayungin Shoal and Escoda Shoal.
