The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) on Tuesday reported that two Chinese research vessels were detected operating within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
PCG spokesperson for the West Philippine Sea (WPS) Commodore Jay Tarriela identified the ships as Xiang Yang Hong 302 and Tan Suo Er Hao.
Xiang Yang Hong 302 departed Hainan in China last May 1 and was located 180 nautical miles off the coast of Rizal, Palawan, at 8 a.m. on Tuesday, according to Tarriela.
“This research vessel is under the administration of the State Oceanic Administration. It is intended for use by the [People’s Liberation Army Navy of China] for oceanography. It has an overall length of 100 meters and 4,500 tons,” Tarriela said in a press briefing.
“The capability of this Chinese research vessel is to conduct deep-sea surveying. This is the reason why it is also equipped with remotely operated vehicles and private underwater drones,” he added.
According to the PCG official, the Tan Suo Er Hao departed from Hainan on May 8 and was last located approximately 130.5 nautical miles off the coast of Burgos, Ilocos Norte.
“This Chinese research vessel is under the administration of China Ocean Mineral Resources Research and Development Association (COMRA), and it is manned by the Institute of Deep-sea Science and Engineering,” Tarriela said.
“It has the capability of also the same with the Xiang Yang Hong 302. It has the capability for deep-sea research,” he added.
According to him, PCG chief Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan deployed an aircraft to conduct a maritime domain awareness flight for monitoring the Tan Suo Er Hao.
In addition to the two Chinese vessels, Tarriela noted that another ship, the Zhong Shan Da Xue, was tracked within the country’s EEZ but departed and returned to Guangdong at 9:56 a.m. on Tuesday.
“As early as March 31, it departed Guangdong province. It spent a considerable large number of conducting marine scientific research up north within the EEZ of the Philippines and sometimes crossing also the Taiwan Strait. It only returned to Guangdong province May 20,” Tarriela said.
He said Zhong Shan Da Xue is owned and operated by Sun Yat-sen University.
“Probably the Chinese government can also reason that it is purely for scientific and civilian use. But there are also reports that the scientific findings of this research vessel is also being forwarded to the PLA Navy for whatever reasons that they can make use of those data,” Tarriela said.